Fabrication and numerical optimization of microfluidic-based spiral micromixer

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Sahand University of Technology, Sahand New Town, Tabriz, Iran.

2 Institute for Polymer Materials, Sahand University of Technology, Sahand New Town, Tabriz, Iran.

3 Tissue Engineering and Stem Cells Research Center, Sahand University of Technology, Sahand New Town, Tabriz, Iran.

Abstract

In this paper, recommended spiral passive micromixer was designed and simulated. spiral design has the potential to create and strengthen the centrifugal force and the secondary flow. A series of simulations were carried out to evaluate the effects of channel width, channel depth, the gap between loops, and flowrate on the micromixer performance. These features impact the contact area of the two fluids and ultimately lead to an increment in the quality of the mixture. In this study, for the flow rate of 25 μl/min and molecular diffusion coefficient of 1×10-10 m2/s, mixing efficiency of more than 90% is achieved after 30 (approximately one-third of the total channel length). Finally, the optimized design fabricated using proposed 3D printing method.

Keywords


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