Journal
ELECTROPHORESIS
Volume 30, Issue 18, Pages 3144-3152Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1002/elps.200900162
Keywords
Electroosmotic flow; Microfluidics; Micro-mixing; Micro-PIV measurement T-mixer
Funding
- Ministry of Education of Singapore [RG07/02]
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This study reports improved electrokinetically driven microfluidic T-mixers to enhance their mixing efficiency. Enhancement of electrokinetic microfluidic T-mixers is achieved using (i) an active approach of utilizing a pulsating EOF, and (ii) a passive approach of using the channel geometry effect with patterned blocks. PDMS-based electrokinetic T-mixers of different designs were fabricated. Experimental measurements were carried out using Rhodamine B to examine the mixing performance and the micro-particle image velocimetry technique to characterize the electrokinetic flow velocity field. Scaling analysis provides an effective frequency range of applied AC electric field. Results show that for a T-mixer of 10 mm mixing length, utilizing frequency modulated electric field and channel geometry effects can increase the mixing efficiency from 50 to 90%. In addition, numerical simulations were performed to analyze the mixing process in the electrokinetic T-mixers with various designs. The simulation results were compared with the experimental data, and reasonable agreement was found.
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