Mixing characterisation for a serpentine microchannel equipped with embedded barriers

This paper describes the design, simulation, fabrication and experimental analysis of a passive micromixer for the mixing of biological solvents. The mixer consists of a T-junction, followed by a serpentine microchannel. the serpentine has three arcs, each equipped with circular barriers that are patterned as two opposing triangles. >The barriers are engineered to induce periodic perturbations in the flow field and enhance the mixing. CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) method is applied to optimise the geometric variables of the mixer before fabrication. The mixer is made from PDMS (Polydimethylsiloxane) using photo- and soft-lithography techniques. Experimental measurements are performed using yellow and blue food dyes as the mixing fluids. The mixing is measured by analysing the composition of the flow's colour across the outlet channel. The performance of the mixer is examined in a wide range of flow rates from 0.5 to 10 µl/min. Mixing efficiencies of higher than 99.4% are obtained in the experiments confirming the results of numerical simulations. The proposed mixer can be employed as a part of lab-on-a-chip for biomedical applications.