A micromixer with two-layer serpentine crossing channels having excellent mixing performance at low Reynolds numbers

A novel design is presented for a chaotic micromixer using two-layer serpentine crossing microchannels. The performance of the micromixer was analyzed both numerically and experimentally. The numerical analysis was performed using three-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations with a convection-diffusion model for the species concentration in a Reynolds number range of 0.2-120. An experimental model of the micromixer was fabricated by soft lithography with polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). Two working fluids, water and dye-water mixture were used for numerical analysis except for the experimental validation of numerical results. Both the numerical and experimental analyses confirm that the micromixer achieves a high level of mixing over a wide range of Reynolds numbers through splitting, enlarging, recombination, and folding mechanisms. The micromixer showed over 95% mixing throughout the tested range of Reynolds number. Especially, about 99% mixing was achieved at Reynolds numbers less than ten. Thus, the proposed micromixer can be used in microfluidic systems which require fast mixing at low Reynolds numbers. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.