A polymeric high-throughput pressure-driven micromixer using a nanoporous membrane

Abstract

This article presents a polymeric high-throughput, pressure-driven nanofluidic mixer utilizing a nanoporous charge-selective Nafion membrane. The device has no movable parts and is fabricated in PMMA by means of laser machining and thermal bonding. Mixing is achieved by strong vortices occurring above the nanoporous membrane when applying an electric field. These vortices are caused by electroconvection in the concentration polarization zone. The mixer is operating at Peclet number as high as 63.5 × 103 allowing rapid mixing at a high throughput. The design and fabrication of the mixer is simple, reproducible, and of low cost. The fabrication approach presented in this article can be easily transferred to roll-to-roll technology for mass fabrication.