Poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) is gaining in popularity in microfluidic devices because of its low cost, excellent optical transparency, attractive mechanical/chemical properties, and simple fabrication procedures. It has been used to fabricate micromixers, PCR reactors, CE and many other microdevices. Here we present the design, fabrication, characterization and application of pneumatic micr...

We present an investigation into optimizing micromixer design for enhancing dielectrophoretic (DEP) microconcentrator performance. DEP-based microconcentrators use the dielectrophoretic force to collect particles on electrodes. Because the DEP force generated by electrodes decays rapidly away from the electrodes, DEP-based microconcentrators are only effective at capturing particles from a limi...

This paper proposes a new "twisted" 3D microfluidic mixer fabricated by a laser writing/microfabrication technique. Effective and efficient mixing using the twisted micromixers can be obtained by combining two general chaotic mixing mechanisms: splitting/recombining and chaotic advection. The lamination of mixer units provides the splitting and recombination mechanism when the quadrant of circl...

In this study, a numerical investigation on mixing and flow structure in a serpentine microchannel with non-aligned input channels was performed. The non-aligned input channels generate a vortical flow, which is formed by incoming fluid streams through tangentially aligned channels. Mixing index was evaluated to measure the degree of mixing in the micromixer. Analyses of mixing and flow field w...

Mixing is essential in microdevices. Therefore, increasing the mixing efficiency has a significant influence on these devices. Using conductive obstacles with special geometry can improve quality of micromixers. In this paper, numerical study caused by an induced-charge electrokinetic micromixer was carried out using plate curved arc shape instead flat or other non-conductive for Newtonian flui...

Achieving the fast mixing requirements posed by the chemical, biological, and life science community for confined microchannel flows remains an engineering challenge. The viscous and surface tension forces that dominate conventional micro-flows undermine fast, efficient mixing. By increasing the collisional velocity of reagent droplets, inertia can be exploited to increase mixing rates. This pa...

One of the main routes to ensure that biomolecules or bioactive agents remain active as they are incorporated into products with applications in different industries is by their encapsulation. Liposomes attractive platforms for encapsulation due ease synthesis and manipulation potential fuse cell membranes when intended drug delivery applications. We propose encapsulating our recently developed...

Efficient mixing at the microscale remains a formidable engineering challenge. Recent advancement and proliferation of Lab-on-a-Chip (LOC) and Micro Total Analysis Systems (μTAS) has demanded accelerated development and demonstration of novel micromixers as successful mixing is critical to device performance. Passive techniques such as chaotic advection and shear thinning as well as active meth...