A novel research on serpentine microchannels of passive micromixers

This paper aims at study and analysis on samples mixing performance of micromixers with serpentine microchannels by numerical simulations in depth. The research on shapes of microchannels is a meaningful issue for improving the samples mixing index in passive micromixers. Lots of productive numerical analysis show that the direction of streamlines changes constantly due to the shape change of microchannels, which enhance molecular diffusion and increases samples mixing index. The simulation and analysis of six microchannel shapes and further numerically analyzed the advantages of the square-wave micromixer have been completed, whose correctness are proved by several mixing experiments. Lots meaningful simulations shows that square-wave microchannels are the best for improving samples mixing among six kinds of micromixers. Adjusting the ratio of microchannels and the number of square-wave units is a effective and simple method to achieve a better mixing performance. It can be demonstrated that the presented design method of microchanel shape is a simple, flexible and efficient technology to improve samples mixing in microfluidic devices.