Meisel I., Ehrhard P.
Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe GmbH, DE
Keywords: electrical double layer, electrohydrodynamics, microchannel, microflow, micromixer, vortex street
In the present paper we propose a method for improved mixing in microchannels. The basic idea is to excite a secondary vortex flow around an obstacle within the micromixer by applying an external oscillatory electrical field. For a simple setup with a single cylindrical obstacle our numerical (FEM) simulations demonstrate the potential of this method. We find that mixing is improved due to an enlargement of the “interfacial” area between the liquids. Further, a dimensionless quantitative measure for the increase of the “interfacial” area is proposed.
Journal: TechConnect Briefs
Volume: 1, Technical Proceedings of the 2002 International Conference on Modeling and Simulation of Microsystems
Published: April 22, 2002
Pages: 62 - 65
Industry sector: Sensors, MEMS, Electronics
Topic: Micro & Bio Fluidics, Lab-on-Chip
ISBN: 0-9708275-7-1