A simplified design of the staggered herringbone micromixer for practical applications

We demonstrated a simple method for the device design of a staggered herringbone micromixer (SHM) using numerical simulation. By correlating the simulated concentrations with channel length, we obtained a series of concentration versus channel length profiles, and used mixing completion length L-m as the only parameter to evaluate the performance of device structure on mixing. Fluorescence quenching experiments were subsequently conducted to verify the optimized SHM structure for a specific application. Good agreement was found between the optimization and the experimental data. Since L-m is straightforward, easily defined and calculated parameter for characterization of mixing performance, this method for designing micromixers is simple and effective for practical applications. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3427240]