Abstract
This article describes an active mixing method for a microbioreactor that was designed, simulated, tested, and successfully implemented. By applying a varying pressure to a microchannel looping tangentially into a cylindrical microreactor an oscillating fluid flow was shown to occur. Such an oscillating fluid flow improved mixing, both by diffusion and convection. The oscillating fluid flow has a large impact on the ratio between the diffusion domain and the convection domain. A good match was obtained between experimental mixing results, computational fluid dynamics simulation results and the results of a simplified mixing model thus demonstrating the potential of simulation on improving the design of microreactors.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 2725-2736 |
Number of pages | 12 |
Journal | AIChE Journal |
Volume | 55 |
Issue number | 10 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Oct 2009 |
Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- Computational fluid dynamics (CFD)
- Microbioreactor
- Microfluidics
- Micromixing
- Oscillations