MICROFABRICATION TECHNOLOGY LIBRARY
Microfluidic Mixers Enabled Through Soft Lithography
Jeremy Goeckeritz - Graduate Student, ECE Department
Introduction
A micro mixer combines small amounts of two or more fluid species into a single stream where the intake components are evenly distributed. Micro mixers have advantageous properties such as compactness, and miniscule fluid consumption. These traits make micro mixers very attractive for use in chemical, biological, and medical microsystems.
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Figure 1. 'Y' channel microfluidic mixer |
In this project, several different micro mixers were designed, simulated and tested. The main objective of each mixer is to maximize mixing efficieny while maintaining a low pressure drop across the mixer. It is envisioned that a design engineer with a set of specifications such as mixing efficiency, flow rate, and pressure drop could select a mixer based on the research presented here and implement the mixer in a microfluidic system. In other words, one of the goals of the project is to create an "off the shelf " mixer capable of being employed in a wide range of applications. With this in mind, the mixers have relatively simple geometries. Furthermore, they are passive devices meaning they require no actuation other than the applied pressure at the inlets.
The details of the micro mixers designed in this project, the teaching manuals, equipment, supplies, and characterization can be accessed here. The manuals are intended to provide a complete set of instructions necassary to re-create the results at the University of Utah's Microfabrication facility.
Soft Microfluidic Mixers