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Electrokinetic optimization of a micromixer for lab-on-chip applications

Barz, Dominik P. J.; Bockelmann, Hendryk; Heuveline, Vincent

Abstract:

This paper is concerned with the optimization of an electrokinetic micromixer suitable for Lab-on-Chip and other microfluidic applications. The mixing concept is based on the combination of an alternating electrical excitation applied to a pressure-driven base flow in a meandering microchannel geometry. The electrical excitation induces a secondary electrokinetic velocity component which results in a complex flow field within the meander bends. A mathematical model describing the physicochemical phenomena present within the micromixer is implemented in an in-house Finite-Element-Method code. We first perform simulations comparable to experiments concerned with the investigation of the flow field in the bends. The comparison of simulation and experiment reveals excellent agreement. Hence, the validated model and numerical schemes are employed for a numerical optimization of the micromixer performance. In detail, we optimize the secondary electrokinetic flow by finding the best electrical excitation parameters, i.e. frequency and amplitude, for a given waveform. The simulation results of two optimized electrical excitations featuring a discrete and a continuous waveform are compared and discussed. ... mehr


Volltext §
DOI: 10.5445/IR/1000029533
Cover der Publikation
Zugehörige Institution(en) am KIT Institut für Angewandte und Numerische Mathematik (IANM)
Publikationstyp Forschungsbericht/Preprint
Publikationsjahr 2012
Sprache Englisch
Identifikator ISSN: 2191-0693
urn:nbn:de:swb:90-295339
KITopen-ID: 1000029533
Verlag Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT)
Serie Preprint Series of the Engineering Mathematics and Computing Lab (EMCL) ; 2012,2
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