Progress of Research work for the Period

December 2015 – June 2016

Name: T Manoj Kumar Dundi Supervisor: Dr. V. R. K. Raju

Roll No.: ME715035 Co-Supervisor: Dr. V. P. Chandra Mohan

Members of Doctoral Scrutiny Committee:

Dr. G. Amba Prasad Rao, Dr. G. Naga Srinivasulu, Dr. K. Ajey Patel,
Professor, Assistant Professor , Assistant Professor,
Mechanical Dept. Mechanical Dept. Civil Engg Dept.

Department of Mechanical Engineering National Institute of Technology-506004.

 OUTLINE

1. Statement of the problem

2. Literature Survey

3 . Wo r k d o n e s o f a r

4. Conclusions

5 . F u t u r e Wo r k

6. References

Department of Mechanical Engineering National Institute of Technology-506004. 1

 Statement of The Problem

“ Enhancement of micro-mixing in passive micro mixers at low

Reynolds numbers”

Introduction to Microfluidic mixing

Definition:

• The aim of microfluidic mixing is to achieve a thorough and rapid mixing of multiple
samples in micro-scale devices.

Department of Mechanical Engineering National Institute of Technology-506004. 2

 Importance of mixing
• Micro-scale mixing is of utmost importance in bio-chemical and chemical analyses
using µTAS or lab-on-chips.
• Following are some of the applications in which micro-mixers are used
- Protein folding studies that sheds light on the causes of a disease
- DNA micro arrays to collect the genetic information
- cell separation and detection,
- organic synthesis to explore the properties of existing compounds or creating new
molecules
- reaction kinetic studies of chemical and biological substances
- chemical assays for assessing and measuring the presence of an analyte, the amount or
functional activity of an analyte.

Department of Mechanical Engineering National Institute of Technology-506004. 3

 Advantages of micro mixing
• The reduced dimensions of the microfluidic system lead to a large surface-to-volume
ratio, which increases heat and mass transfer efficiencies.
• An improved portability more rapid analysis due to the small dimensions which results
in shorter operation time than the traditional macro-scale counterparts.
• The benefit of consuming only a small amount of the reagents and thus resulting in
great savings on expensive reagents.
• Low cost of manufacturing.
• More straightforward integration with lab-on-chips.

Department of Mechanical Engineering National Institute of Technology-506004. 4

 Challenges presently facing
• Due to the small dimensions of the micro channels, the flow is predominantly laminar
and mixing is therefore limited by molecular diffusion.
• Studies of homogeneous kinetics in solution require that a system become well mixed
on a time scale faster than the kinetics of the reaction.
• It is preferable for most chemical reactions that the mixing rate is faster than the
reaction rate so that the creation of unwanted side products is minimized.
• Many biochemical assays, for example DNA microarrays, require that a reagent be
brought into contact with the entirety of a functionalized surface, i.e., that the reagents
in the system be well mixed.
• Therefore, in order to effectively mix in a reasonable time, fluids must be manipulated
so that the interfacial surface area between the fluids is increased massively and the
diffusional path is decreased, enhancing the molecular diffusion to complete the mixing
process.
Department of Mechanical Engineering National Institute of Technology-506004. 5
 Types of Micro-mixers
• Micromixers can be classified into active and passive mixers.
• The active mixer requires external forces such as pneumatic or mechanical
vibration to enhance mixing efficiency. Active mixers use external perturbation to
introduce vorticity into laminar flow. Ultrasonics, pressure field disturbance,
thermal, magnetically and electrokinetics driven mixers are a few examples.
• Mixing in passive mixers usually is induced by driving fluids through channels
with cleaved geometries. Passive micromixers contain no moving parts and require
no energy input other than the pressure head used to drive the fluid flow. These
devices are designed with a channel geometry that increases the surface area
between the different fluids and decreases the diffusion path.
• The overwhelming number of currently used micro mixers are passive type due to
their robustness, stability in operation and easily integrable in a more complex
system.

Department of Mechanical Engineering National Institute of Technology-506004. 6

 Working principle of mixing in passive mixers

• In passive mixers the flow itself induces various streams with stretching, splitting,
recombination, and at last diffusive mixing.
• Due to the dominating laminar flow on the micro scale, mixing in passive mixers
relies mainly on molecular diffusion and chaotic advection.
• Mixing of species inside the passive mixer is governed by the following
convection-diffusion equation.

Department of Mechanical Engineering National Institute of Technology-506004. 7

 Flow phenomenon in passive T-mixer

• The flow in micro channels is mainly regarded as stratified laminar flow. This is
correct for straight channels with a low flow velocity, i.e., a low Reynolds number
flow.
• For low flow velocities, Re~10, the flow is laminar and the streamlines are
straight.

Department of Mechanical Engineering National Institute of Technology-506004. 8

 • The straight laminar flow breaks up when the fluid flows through curves and
bends.
• With increasing flow velocity the centrifugal forces of the bent flow induce
symmetrical vortex pairs at the entrance of the mixing channel. Centrifugal forces
push the fluid from the center of the channel, where the bulk fluid flows with high
velocity, to the outer side.
• Viscous forces dampen the vortices and the flow becomes laminar again after a
certain distance.

Department of Mechanical Engineering National Institute of Technology-506004. 9

 • The symmetry of the vortex pairs is broken for even higher Re numbers at the
entrance of the mixing channel and fluid swaps to the opposite side.
.

• This asymmetrical flow gives an additional interfacial area for mass transfer and
dramatically increases the mixing quality.

Department of Mechanical Engineering National Institute of Technology-506004. 10

 • Therefore it is seen that at higher Reynolds numbers, quality of mixing has
improved to a greater degree due to vorticity and convective effects.
• But for higher velocities viz., higher Reynolds numbers to enhance mixing we
require high supply pressures. The high pressures can be a serious challenge for
bonding and interconnection technologies. The energy loss per unit pressure rise
also increases as the mass flow is increased.
• Further modifications need to be carried out based upon the micro T-mixer design
to improve its efficiency at low Reynolds numbers, i.e. achieving rapid mixing at a
lower applied pressure.

Department of Mechanical Engineering National Institute of Technology-506004. 11

 • Therefore the objective of present study is to investigate the possibilities of
enhancing mixing in passive micro-mixers at low Reynolds numbers.

Department of Mechanical Engineering National Institute of Technology-506004. 13

 Literature Review
Applications of micro mixers
• Micromixers are widely used in chemical, biological and medical analysis fields.
Almost every chemical assay requires mixing of reagents with a sample.
• The basic T-mixer was used in the work of Kamholz et al for the measurement of
analyte concentrations of a continuous flow.
• Wu et al used a Y-mixer for investigating the nonlinear diffusive behavior of a
fluorescein.
• An electrokinetically driven T-mixer was used in for performing enzyme assays.
• Fluri et al combines capillary electrophoresis (CE) separation with a T-mixer as a
post-column reactor.
• In Vijiayendran et al., micromixers were used for the sample preparation of a surface-
based biosensor.

Department of Mechanical Engineering National Institute of Technology-506004. 15

 • Besides sensing and analysis applications as discussed above, micomixers were
used as a tool for dispersing immiscible liquids and forming micro droplets.
• Furthermore, micromixers work as a separator for particles based on their different
diffusion coefficients.

Mixing Enhancement
• The diffusive mixing when assisted by vortices and convective effects resulted in
faster and efficient mixing, which were first studied in conventional T-shaped
micromixers and reported by Kockmann et al.

Department of Mechanical Engineering National Institute of Technology-506004. 16

 • In Wong et al., it is reported that The presence of small z velocity components in the
flow of liquids in the inlet channels, as well as asymmetrical flow velocities at the
inlets and dissimilar viscosity of the two liquids results in swirling flow that enhances
the mixing performance.
• A. Soleymani et al., showed that the development of vortices is essential for good
mixing performance. Furthermore, it was shown that the development and occurrence
of vortices depends strongly on both volume flow rates and geometrical parameters of
the mixer such as the aspect ratio and mixing angle.

Department of Mechanical Engineering National Institute of Technology-506004. 17

 1). The following course of 04 credits is attended and passed in the current
semester.

Department of Mechanical Engineering National Institute of Technology-506004. 18

 2). Numerical study of mixing phenomenon in a passive micro T-mixer using Ansys
Fluent.

• The following ‘T’ geometry with the same dimensions used in Nobert Kockmann
et al., is used as a micro mixer geometry for the current study.

Department of Mechanical Engineering National Institute of Technology-506004. 19

 Mesh

• The hexahedral type of elements with element size of 6 µm is used in

meshing the geometry.

Department of Mechanical Engineering National Institute of Technology-506004. 20

 Set up

• The following models, type of boundary conditions, schemes and residuals

are used for the problem set up.

Models:
• Steady laminar flow and species transport models are used.

Boundary conditions:
• Velocity inlet for left and right inlets, pressure outlet for outlet, No slip
condition at walls

Schemes:
• SIMPLEC algorithm for pressure velocity coupling, second order
discretization schemes for momentum, species and energy equation.

Residuals:
• 10^-06 - continuity, momentum and species equations.
10^-16 - energy equation.

Department of Mechanical Engineering National Institute of Technology-506004. 21

 • The solution is converged for the above residuals.
• The following figure shows the grid independency test for the axial velocity
profile at the centre line of outlet face.

Department of Mechanical Engineering National Institute of Technology-506004. 22

 • In the following way, the results obtained through simulation are compared with
the results reported by Kockmann et al., and validated.

1. Stratified Laminar flow regime

Vm = 0.08 m/s
Streamlines view from the front of mixer
Re = 12.4

Contour of Species concentration at Outlet

Department of Mechanical Engineering National Institute of Technology-506004. 23

 2. Vortex flow regime

Vm = 0.8 m/s

Re = 125

Streamlines view from the front of mixer

Contour of Species concentration at Outlet

Department of Mechanical Engineering National Institute of Technology-506004. 24

 3. Engulfement flow regime

Vm = 2 m/s

Re = 310

Streamlines view from the front of mixer

Contour of Species concentration at Outlet

Department of Mechanical Engineering National Institute of Technology-506004. 25

Department of Mechanical Engineering National Institute of Technology-506004. 26
 Conclusions
• The following conclusions are made from the numerical study of mixing in
micro T-Mixer.

a) Mixing quality decreases for velocities higher than stratified laminar flow
regime until the symmetrical vortices are developed.

b) For velocities higher than the vortex flow when the vortex pairs are broken, the
mixing quality increases significantly.

c) Only for higher Reynolds number flows, high throughput and fast reactions are
possible for efficient mixing of rapid mixing applications.

d) We require high supply pressures for higher Reynolds number flows. The high
pressures can be a serious challenge for bonding and interconnection
technologies.

Department of Mechanical Engineering National Institute of Technology-506004. 27

 Future Work

• Future work is planned to investigate the possibilities of enhancing mixing in

low Reynolds number flow regimes of micromixer, where lower pressures can be
used.
a) Asymmetry flow field created by incorporating structures such as a step to
induce a larger z velocity component in the flow of one of the inlets to enhance
the swirling of the mixture in the mixing channel can be incorporated in the
micro T-mixer.
b) Various bends in series combined with different aspect ratios and mixing angles
might be used to increase the mixing efficiency at low Reynolds number flows.

Department of Mechanical Engineering National Institute of Technology-506004. 28

 References
[1] Nguyen N T and Wereley S T 2002 Fundamentals and Applications of
Microfluidics (Boston: Artech House)
[2] Oosterbroek R E and van den Berg A 2003 Lab-on-a-Chip: Miniaturized System
for Bio(Chemical) Analysis and Synthesis (Amsterdam: Elsevier)
[3] Geschke O, Klank H and Telleman P 2004 Microsystem Engineering of Lab-on-
a-Chip Devices 2nd edn (New York: Wiley)
[4] Nguyen N T, Huang X Y and Toh K C 2002 MEMS–micropumps: a review
ASME Trans.—J. Fluids Eng. 124384–92
[5] Laser D J and Santiago J G 2004 A review of micropumpsJ. Micromech.
Microeng. 11 R35–64
[6] Woias P 2004 Micropumps-past, progress and futureprospects Sensors Actuators
B at press
[7] Kakuta M, Bessoth F G and Manz A 2001 Microfabricateddevices for fluid
mixing and their application for chemical synthesis Chem. Rec. 1 395–405
[8] Reyes D R et al 2002 Micro total analysis systems:1. Introduction, theory, and
technology Anal. Chem. 742623–36

Department of Mechanical Engineering National Institute of Technology-506004. 29

 References
[9] V. Hessel, H. L¨owe, F. Sch¨onfeld, Chem. Eng. Sci. 60 (2005) 2479–2501.
[10] A.D. Stroock, S.K.W. Dertinger, A. Ajdari, G.M. Whitesides, Science 295
(2002) 647–651.
[11] J.R. Bourne, Org. Proc. Res. Dev. 7 (2003) 471.
[12] D. Gobby, P. Angeli, A. Gavriilidis, J. Micromech. Microeng. 11 (2001) 126–
132.
[13] G. Deerberg, J. Gr¨an-Heedfeld, T. Hennig, E. Weidner, Chem. Ing. Technol. 77
(2005) 1501–1511.
[14] N. Kockmann, C. F¨oll, P. Woias, Flow regimes and mass transfer
characteristics in static micro mixers, SPIE Photonics West, Micromachining and
Microfabrication [4982-38], San Jose, USA, 2003. [15] M. Engler, N. Kockmann, T.
Kiefer, P. Woias, Chem. Eng. J. 101 (2004)315–322.
[16] M. Engler, N. Kockmann, T. Kiefer, P. Woias, Convective mixing and its
application to micro reactors, in: Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference
on Micro and Minichannels [ICMM-2412], ASME, Rochester, NY, USA, 2004,
781–788.

Department of Mechanical Engineering National Institute of Technology-506004. 30

 References
[17] S.H. Wong, M.C.L. Ward, C.W. Wharton, Sens. Act. B 100 (2004) 359–379.
[18] P. Guichardon, L. Falk, Chem. Eng. Sci. 55 (2000) 4233–4243.
[19] P. Guichardon, L. Falk, J. Villermaux, Chem. Eng. Sci. 55 (2000) 4245–4253.
[20] G. Trippa, R.J.J. Jachuk, Characterization of mixing efficiency in narrow
channels by using the iodide–iodate reaction system, 2nd Int. Conf. Micro and
Minichannels, [ICMM2004-2413], ASME, Rochester, USA, 2004, 789–793.
[21] W.R. Dean, Note on the motion of a fluid in a curved pipe, Philos. Mag. 4
(1927) 208–223.
[22] N. Kockmann, M. Engler, D. Haller, P. Woias, Heat Trans. Eng. 26 (2005) 71–
78.
[23] N. Kockmann, M. Engler, C. F¨oll, P. Woias, Liquid mixing in static micro
mixers with various cross-sections, in: S.G. Kandlikar (Ed.), Proceedings of the 1st
International Conference on Micro- and Minichannels ASME, Rochester, 2003
(ICMM2003-1121).

Department of Mechanical Engineering National Institute of Technology-506004. 31

 THANK YOU

Department of Mechanical Engineering National Institute of Technology-506004.