Active Continuous-Flow Micromixer Using an External Braille Pin Actuator Array

Micromachines

Yawar Abbas¹  Junichi Miwa¹  Roland Zengerle¹ 

[1] Laboratory for MEMS Applications, Department of Microsystems Engineering, IMTEK, University of Freiburg, Georges-Koehler-Allee 103, 79110 Freiburg, Germany;E-Mails:

关键词: active micromixer;    continuous-flow;    chaotic advection;    channel wall deflection;    PDMS chip;    cell sample dilution;    microfluidic Braille pin actuated platform;   

DOI  :  10.3390/mi4010080

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

We present a continuous-flow active micromixer based on channel-wall deflection in a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) chip for volume flows in the range up to 2 μL s⁻¹ which is intended as a novel unit operation for the microfluidic Braille pin actuated platform. The chip design comprises a main microchannel connected to a series of side channels with dead ends aligned on the Braille pins. Computer-controlled deflection of the side-channel walls induces chaotic advection in the main-channel, which substantially accelerates mixing in low-Reynolds number flow. Sufficient mixing (mixing index MI below 0.1) of volume flows up to 0.5 μL s⁻¹ could be achieved within residence times ~500 ms in the micromixer. As an application, continuous dilution of a yeast cell sample by a ratio down to 1:10 was successfully demonstrated. The mixer is intended to serve as a component of bio-analytical devices or as a unit operation in the microfluidic Braille pin actuated platform.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2013 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.