Three-dimensional multihelical microfluidic mixers for rapid mixing of liquids
Three-dimensional multihelical microfluidic mixers for rapid mixing of liquids
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DOI：
10.1021/la702895w
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发表时间：
2008-03-04
期刊：
影响因子：
3.9
通讯作者：
Ghatak, Animangsu
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Verma, Mohan K. S.;Ganneboyina, Sambasiva Rao;Ghatak, Animangsu
液体的快速混合对于大多数微流体应用是重要的。然而，在传统的微混合器中混合是缓慢的，因为在没有湍流的情况下，这里的混合通过分子扩散发生。最近的实验表明，混合可以通过产生瞬态流导致混沌平流来增强。虽然这些是平面微通道，在这里，我们表明，三维取向的流体容器和通道可以显着提高液体的混合。特别是，我们提出了一种新的，多螺旋微通道系统内置在软凝胶，其中的螺旋角，螺旋半径，轴向长度，甚至通道横截面的不对称性很容易定制，以实现所需的混合。混合效率随着螺旋角和通道横截面的不对称性而增加，这导致混合长度比传统混合器减少了几个数量级。这种生成3D微通道的新方案将有助于设备的小型化，过程强化以及用于微流体应用的多功能处理单元的生成。
Rapid mixing of liquids is important for most microfluidic applications. However, mixing is slow in conventional micromixers, because, in the absence of turbulence, mixing here occurs by molecular diffusion. Recent experiments show that mixing can be enhanced by generating transient flow resulting in chaotic advection. While these are planar microchannels, here we show that three-dimensional orientations of fluidic vessels and channels can enhance significantly mixing of liquids. In particular, we present a novel, multihelical microchannel system built in soft gels, for which the helix angle, helix radius, axial length, and even the asymmetry of the channel cross section are easily tailored to achieve the desired mixing. Mixing efficiency increases with helix angle and asymmetry of channel cross section, which leads to orders of magnitude reduction in mixing length over conventional mixers. This new scheme of generating 3D microchannels will help in miniaturization of devices, process intensification, and generation of multifunctional process units for microfluidic applications.