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A Three-Dimensional Micromixer Using Oblique Embedded Ridges

A micromixer is one of the most significant components in a microfluidic system. A three-dimensional micromixer was developed with advantages of high efficiency, simple fabrication, easy integration, and ease of mass production. The designed principle is based on the concepts of splitting–recombinat...

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Autores principales: Li, Lin, Chen, Qingde, Sui, Guodong, Qian, Jing, Tsai, Chi-Tay, Cheng, Xunjia, Jing, Wenwen
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8305879/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34357216
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/mi12070806
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author Li, Lin
Chen, Qingde
Sui, Guodong
Qian, Jing
Tsai, Chi-Tay
Cheng, Xunjia
Jing, Wenwen
author_facet Li, Lin
Chen, Qingde
Sui, Guodong
Qian, Jing
Tsai, Chi-Tay
Cheng, Xunjia
Jing, Wenwen
author_sort Li, Lin
collection PubMed
description A micromixer is one of the most significant components in a microfluidic system. A three-dimensional micromixer was developed with advantages of high efficiency, simple fabrication, easy integration, and ease of mass production. The designed principle is based on the concepts of splitting–recombination and chaotic advection. A numerical model of this micromixer was established to characterize the mixing performance for different parameters. A critical Reynolds number (Re) was obtained from the simulation results. When the Re number is smaller than the critical value, the fluid mixing is mainly dependent on the mechanism of splitting–recombination, therefore, the length of the channel capable of complete mixing (complete mixing length) increases as the Re number increases. When the Re number is larger than the critical value, the fluid mixing is dominated by chaotic advection, and the complete mixing length decreases as the Re number increases. For normal fluids, a complete mixing length of 500 µm can be achieved at a very small Re number of 0.007 and increases to 2400 µm as the Re number increases to the critical value of 4.7. As the Re number keep increasing and passes the critical Re number, the complete mixing length continues to descend to 650 µm at the Re number of 66.7. For hard-to-mix fluids (generally referring to fluids with high viscosity and low diffusion coefficient, which are difficult to mix), even though no evidence of strong chaotic advection is presented in the simulation, the micromixer can still achieve a complete mixing length of 2550 µm. The mixing performance of the micromixer was also verified by experiments. The experimental results showed a consistent trend with the numerical simulation results, which both climb upward when the Re number is around 0.007 (flow rate of 0.03 μm/min) to around 10 (flow rate of 50 μm/min), then descend when the Re number is around 13.3 (flow rate of 60 µm/min).
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spelling pubmed-83058792021-07-25 A Three-Dimensional Micromixer Using Oblique Embedded Ridges Li, Lin Chen, Qingde Sui, Guodong Qian, Jing Tsai, Chi-Tay Cheng, Xunjia Jing, Wenwen Micromachines (Basel) Article A micromixer is one of the most significant components in a microfluidic system. A three-dimensional micromixer was developed with advantages of high efficiency, simple fabrication, easy integration, and ease of mass production. The designed principle is based on the concepts of splitting–recombination and chaotic advection. A numerical model of this micromixer was established to characterize the mixing performance for different parameters. A critical Reynolds number (Re) was obtained from the simulation results. When the Re number is smaller than the critical value, the fluid mixing is mainly dependent on the mechanism of splitting–recombination, therefore, the length of the channel capable of complete mixing (complete mixing length) increases as the Re number increases. When the Re number is larger than the critical value, the fluid mixing is dominated by chaotic advection, and the complete mixing length decreases as the Re number increases. For normal fluids, a complete mixing length of 500 µm can be achieved at a very small Re number of 0.007 and increases to 2400 µm as the Re number increases to the critical value of 4.7. As the Re number keep increasing and passes the critical Re number, the complete mixing length continues to descend to 650 µm at the Re number of 66.7. For hard-to-mix fluids (generally referring to fluids with high viscosity and low diffusion coefficient, which are difficult to mix), even though no evidence of strong chaotic advection is presented in the simulation, the micromixer can still achieve a complete mixing length of 2550 µm. The mixing performance of the micromixer was also verified by experiments. The experimental results showed a consistent trend with the numerical simulation results, which both climb upward when the Re number is around 0.007 (flow rate of 0.03 μm/min) to around 10 (flow rate of 50 μm/min), then descend when the Re number is around 13.3 (flow rate of 60 µm/min). MDPI 2021-07-08 /pmc/articles/PMC8305879/ /pubmed/34357216 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/mi12070806 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Li, Lin
Chen, Qingde
Sui, Guodong
Qian, Jing
Tsai, Chi-Tay
Cheng, Xunjia
Jing, Wenwen
A Three-Dimensional Micromixer Using Oblique Embedded Ridges
title A Three-Dimensional Micromixer Using Oblique Embedded Ridges
title_full A Three-Dimensional Micromixer Using Oblique Embedded Ridges
title_fullStr A Three-Dimensional Micromixer Using Oblique Embedded Ridges
title_full_unstemmed A Three-Dimensional Micromixer Using Oblique Embedded Ridges
title_short A Three-Dimensional Micromixer Using Oblique Embedded Ridges
title_sort three-dimensional micromixer using oblique embedded ridges
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8305879/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34357216
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/mi12070806
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