%0 Journal Article
%T Active Continuous-Flow Micromixer Using an External Braille Pin Actuator Array
%A Yawar Abbas
%A Junichi Miwa
%A Roland Zengerle
%A Felix von Stetten
%J Micromachines
%D 2013
%I MDPI AG
%R 10.3390/mi4010080
%X We present a continuous-flow active micromixer based on channel-wall deflection in a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) chip for volume flows in the range up to 2£¿¦ÌL s £¿1 which is intended as a novel unit operation for the microfluidic Braille pin actuated platform. The chip design comprises a main microchannel connected to a series of side channels with dead ends aligned on the Braille pins. Computer-controlled deflection of the side-channel walls induces chaotic advection in the main-channel, which substantially accelerates mixing in low-Reynolds number flow. Sufficient mixing (mixing index MI below 0.1) of volume flows up to 0.5 ¦ÌL s £¿1 could be achieved within residence times ~500 ms in the micromixer. As an application, continuous dilution of a yeast cell sample by a ratio down to 1:10 was successfully demonstrated. The mixer is intended to serve as a component of bio-analytical devices or as a unit operation in the microfluidic Braille pin actuated platform.
%K active micromixer
%K continuous-flow
%K chaotic advection
%K channel wall deflection
%K PDMS chip
%K cell sample dilution
%K microfluidic Braille pin actuated platform
%U http://www.mdpi.com/2072-666X/4/1/80