Investigation of AC electro-osmotic flow based microfluidic mixer with micro rods

Abstract

AC electrokinetics (ACEK) is useful technique for providing species manipulation and liquid transportation. This method is applicable to many fields like cell separation, synthesis, pumping, mixing in microfluidics technologies. Mixing in micro-scale is very problematic issue due to the domination of surface forces over inertial forces. For acquiring complete mixing, extended channels or longer time is needed. To accelerate mixing, active and passive micromixers are presented in the literature. Among active micromixer types, ACEK-based micromixers are preferred techniques due to their advances in preventing electrochemical reactions and electrolysis. In this thesis, micromixer based on AC electroosmosis (ACEO) around micro rods is introduced. In this study, mixer performance is evaluated according to variable rod configurations, two different surface material and ow rates. Both computational modeling and experimentation are handled. Easy and cheap fabrication with commercially available metal wires is adopted. By introducing 3D electrode pairs, 3D vortex profile is presented and the most in uential configuration is discovered.