Analyzing mixing quality in a curved centrifugal micromixer through numerical simulation

Abstract

The Lab On a CD (LOCD), also known as Centrifugal Microfluidics, has evolved into a sophisticated platform for performing biomedical assays due to its marvelous miniaturization and accurate simulation of biological reactions. Among the numerous applications of the LOCD is fluid mixing. In this paper a centrifugal, serpentine micromixer is simulated and reformed toward better mixing performance. The micromixer was chosen to be curved as a curved design was found to be thrice as functional and compact as a rectilinear design, mixing-wise. The two angular velocity and opening radius parameters were originally hypothesized to affect mixing performance. Effect of angular velocity was studied over a broad range starting from quite low values. It was gathered that with increasing angular velocity, mixing performance initially drops and upon reaching a minimum at a threshold angular velocity, begins to continuously increase. The threshold angular velocity was found to be the spot at which the mixing regime changes from diffusion to secondary flow. It was also realized that increasing the opening radius enhances mixing performance only insignificantly, such that it would not be a practical means of making micromixers more efficient.