Abstract
Vortex flow increases the interface area of fluid streams by stretching along with providing continuous stirring action to the fluids in micromixers. In this study, experimental and numerical analyses on a design of micromixer that creates vortex flow were carried out, and the mixing performance was compared with a simple micro T-mixer. In the vortex micro T-mixer, the height of the inlet channels is half of the height of the main mixing channel. The inlet channel connects to the main mixing channel (micromixer) at the one end at an offset position in a fashion that creates vortex flow. In the simple micro T-mixer, the height of the inlet channels is equal to the height of the channel after connection (main mixing channel). Mixing of fluids and flow field have been analyzed for Reynolds numbers in a range from 1–80. The study has been further extended to planar serpentine microchannels, which were combined with a simple and a vortex T-junction, to evaluate and verify their mixing performances. The mixing performance of the vortex T-mixer is higher than the simple T-mixer and significantly increases with the Reynolds number. The design is promising for efficiently increasing mixing simply at the T-junction and can be applied to all micromixers.
Highlights
Microfluidic devices have gained popularity for the development of miniaturized analysis systems with wider applications like chemical, biochemical reactions, biomedical devices and drug delivery [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13]
At some higher Reynolds numbers (Re ≥ 136) [36,37], the vortex flow starts with the formation of the two vortices, and mixing performance is improved due to the increase in the interface area of the fluid streams
We present a comparative analysis of simple and vortex micro T-mixers at different Reynolds numbers (1–80), both experimentally and numerically
Summary
Microfluidic devices have gained popularity for the development of miniaturized analysis systems with wider applications like chemical, biochemical reactions, biomedical devices and drug delivery [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13]. Active micromixers require some external source of energy or any moving parts for stimulating the flow and are generally more efficient in mixing than passive micromixers They are difficult to fabricate and integrate with the main microfluidic systems. At some higher Reynolds numbers (Re ≥ 136) [36,37], the vortex flow starts with the formation of the two vortices, and mixing performance is improved due to the increase in the interface area of the fluid streams. The last two physical phenomena contribute to mixing: an increase in the interface area and a decrease in the diffusion length due to the intertwining of the streamlines Such flow structures are desired to attain rapid mixing. The design of the vortex T-mixer was proven to be very promising and can be selected for integration with all possible current and future micromixer designs
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