Mixing in polymeric microfluidic devices.

This SAND report describes progress made during a Sandia National Laboratories sponsored graduate fellowship. The fellowship was funded through an LDRD proposal. The goal of this project is development and characterization of mixing strategies for polymeric microfluidic devices. The mixing strategies under investigation include electroosmotic flow focusing, hydrodynamic focusing, physical constrictions and porous polymer monoliths. For electroosmotic flow focusing, simulations were performed to determine the effect of electroosmotic flow in a microchannel with heterogeneous surface potential. The heterogeneous surface potential caused recirculations to form within the microchannel. These recirculations could then be used to restrict two mixing streams and reduce the characteristic diffusion length. Maximum mixing occurred when the ratio of the mixing region surface potential to the average channel surface potential was made large in magnitude and negative in sign, and when the ratio of the characteristic convection time to the characteristic diffusion time was minimized. Based on these results, experiments were performed to evaluate the manipulation of surface potential using living-radical photopolymerization. The material chosen to manipulate typically exhibits a negative surface potential. Using living-radical surface grafting, a positive surface potential was produced using 2-(Dimethylamino)ethyl methacrylate and a neutral surface was produced using a poly(ethylene glycol) surface graft. Simulations investigating hydrodynamic focusing were also performed. For this technique, mixing is enhanced by using a tertiary fluid stream to constrict the two mixing streams and reduce the characteristic diffusion length. Maximum mixing occurred when the ratio of the tertiary flow stream flow-rate to the mixing streams flow-rate was maximized. Also, like the electroosmotic focusing mixer, mixing was also maximized when the ratio of the characteristic convection time to the characteristic diffusion time was minimized. Physical constrictions were investigated through simulations. The results show that the maximum mixing occurs when the height of the mixing region is minimized. Finally, experiments were performed to determine the effectiveness of using porous polymer monoliths to enhance mixing. The porous polymer monoliths were constructed using a monomer/salt paste. Two salt crystal size ranges were used; 75 to 106 microns and 53 to 180 microns. Mixing in the porous polymer monoliths fabricated with the 75 to 106 micron salt crystal size range was six times higher than a channel without a monolith. Mixing in the monolith fabricated with the 53 to 180 micron salt crystal size range was nine times higher