A Microfluidic Mixer Utilizing Electrokinetic Relay Switching and Asymmetric Flow Geometries

Performances of a hybrid electrokinetic-passive micromixer are predicted numerically. An h/p-type spectral element method is used to simulate the mixing behavior in microdevices. The numerical algorithm employs modal spectral expansion in quadrilateral and unstructured triangular meshes and provides high-order numerical accuracy. A second-order accurate, stiffly stable integration scheme is used for temporal integration. In the numerical technique, the electric double layer is not resolved to avoid expensive computation, rather a slip velocity is assigned at the channel surface based on the electric field and the electroosmotic mobility. The presented hybrid mixing scheme takes advantages of mixing enhancements induced by asymmetric flow geometries and electrokinetic relay actuation. Effects of relay frequency, applied electric potential, channel width, and channel geometry on micromixing have been conducted. Numerical results show that electrokinetic relay at an appropriate frequency causes effective mixing. Moreover, asymmetric flow geometries and narrow channel width are critical for ultraeffective mixing. The proposed hybrid mixing scheme not only provides excellent mixing within very short time, but also can easily be integrated with microdevices for “lab-on-a-chip” applications because there is no need of any external mechanical pumps.