METHOD FOR MIXING FLUID STREAMS, MICROFLUIDIC MIXER AND MICROFLUIDIC CHIP UTILIZING SAME

摘要

A method for mixing fluid streams, microfluidic mixer and microfluidic chip utilizing same utilize a topological mixing scheme that exploits the laminarity of the flow to repeatedly fold the flow and exponentially increase the concentration gradients to obtain fast and efficient mixing by diffusion (Figure 1a). It is based on helical flow channels with opposite chiralities that split rotate and recombine the fluid stream in a topology reminiscent of a series of MÖBIUS bands. This geometry is realized in a simple six-stage, two-layer elastomer structure with a footprint of 400 µm x 300 µm per stage that mixes two solutions efficiently at Reynolds numbers between 0.1 and 2. This represents more than an order of magnitude reduction in the size of microfluid mixers that can be manufactured in standard multilayer soft lithography techniques.