Performances of Microfluidic Mixing Regulated using Active Pressure Controller

Abstract

Microfluidics studies how fluid dynamic changes at the microscale level. Interest in microfluidic technologies has been driven by associated developments in bio-related fields such as cell biology, genomics, drug delivery, high-throughput screening and diagnostics, as well as a recognized need to perform fast and efficient experiments on small-sample volumes. Fluid behaviour in the microfluidic channel depends on channel geometry, complexity, and presence of external force (passive or active). Rapid and uniform mixing are fundamental principles on which effective design and development of micro-mixer relies on. In this paper COMSOL Multiphysics simulation software was used to investigate the flow characteristics within Y shaped microfluidic channel model for different pressure signals (sin, ramp, step), their periods (1 and 1.5 s) and amplitudes (10 mbar, 50 mbar and 100 mbar). Results were compared with experimentally gained data obtained using commercial flow control system. The results confirm that the best mixing performance was achieved with step signal shape, on shorter periods, and with the higher pressure.