Study on Flow Characteristics of Microfluid in Electroosmotic Flow Mixer

Abstract

As one of the important components of modern microfluidic devices, micromixers have attracted more and more attention. Among many microfluidic mixers, electro-osmotic flow mixers have been widely studied and applied due to their advantages such as simple structure, convenient control and remarkable mixing effect. In this paper, a two-dimensional numerical model of an electro-osmotic flow micromixer with an annular mixing chamber is established by means of the simulation software COMSOL Multiphysics. The mixing process of fluid in the electro-osmotic flow micromixer is simulated, and the flow characteristics of fluid in the micromixer are analyzed. The analysis shows that the electroosmotic flow micromixer generates electroosmotic flow under the action of alternating electric field, and disturbs the fluid to form vortex, thus greatly improving the mixing efficiency. The results show that the micromixing efficiency increases with the increase of zeta potential and applied alternating electric field potential, and in a certain range, the micromixing efficiency increases first and then decreases with the increase of alternating electric field frequency.