An overlapping crisscross micromixer using chaotic mixing principles

[[abstract]]A novel PDMS-based microfluidic system incorporating an overlapping crisscross entrance with patterned groove microchannels in sequence serves as a high-performance micromixer. Such a design is characterized as involving two chaotic mixing mechanisms: the split entrance streams through the first overlapping crisscross junction are stretched and folded about the parabolic point within the patterned channel, and the reoriented streams are merged and restretched about the hyperbolic point at the next junction. The multiplicative mixing quality is thus revealed to increase 21% as installed with the staggered bas-relief structures on the walls and 29% through the second intersection of the overlapping crisscross micromixer. This microfluidic device has a fairly constant mixing index for the Reynolds number through a wide range between 0.01 and 10; it is potentially capable of being extended to achieve a key element of a lab-on-a-chip. Use of both numerical analysis and a confocal microscope elucidates the detailed mixing pattern; the results of these approaches agree convincingly. © 2006 IOP Publishing Ltd.[[fileno]]2020229010006[[department]]動機