Mixing at Microscale

초록

Micromixers are essential components of lab-on-a-chip and micro-total analysis systems used for a variety of chemical and biological applications such as sample preparation and analysis, protein folding, DNA analysis, and cell separation. Due to the small characteristic dimension of micromixers, the flow is laminar in a Reynolds number range from 0.01 to 100 for typical microfluidic applications. In microfluidic devices, the laminar flow condition poses a challenge for the mixing of liquid samples. Therefore, for high performance lab-on-a-chip and micro-total analysis systems, it is essential to develop and devise micromixers to achieve fast and compact mixing at the micro-scale. Although mixing can involve different phases (solid, liquid and gases), the present book focuses on liquid–liquid mixing such as water–ethanol mixing. This chapter provides an introduction to application of micromixers, flow dynamics and mixing in micromixers, and dimensionless numbers which characterize flow and mixing regimes. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

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