A Micromixer with Two-Layer Crossing Microchannels Based on PMMA Bonding Process

Abstract

A micromixer with two-layer crossing microchannels based on PMMA bonding process was proposed. The micromixer consists of two-layer crossing microchannels and periodic mixing chambers. The numerical simulation and parameters optimization of the micromixer were carried out in a Reynolds number range of 0.5–100 using CFD software, and the prototype of micromixer was manufactured by PMMA bonding process under certain temperature and pressure condition. The mixing performance of the micromixer was tested and verified by the mixing experiments using red-blue dye. Both the numerical and experimental results confirmed that the micromixer achieves an excellent mixing characteristics over a wide range of Reynolds numbers through generating Dean vortices and chaotic advection. At the same time, the PMMA bonding process proposed in this paper has certain application value and reference significance for expanding the application of three-dimensional flow channels in the field of microfluidics.

Hydrodynamic and Kinematic Study to Analyze the Mixing Efficiency of Short Passive Micromixers

“…The proposed micromixer offers an improvement in mixing performances over micromixers of the same category reported previously. Wang et al 24 have suggested a new three-dimensional two-layer micromixer, which is manufactured by the PMMA bonding process. Their numerical and experimental results demonstrate that the proposed micromixer exhibits a good mixing efficiency for a wide range of Reynolds numbers from 0.5 to 100, such that a mixing index of 91.5% is obtained at Re = 5, while at Re = 100, the mixing efficiency reaches 98.6%.…”

“…The proposed micromixer offers an improvement in mixing performances over micromixers of the same category reported previously. Wang et al . have suggested a new three-dimensional two-layer micromixer, which is manufactured by the PMMA bonding process.…”