This review reports the progress on the recent development of micromixers. The review first presents the different micromixer types and designs. Micromixers in this review are categorized as passive micromixers and active micromixers. Due to the simple fabrication technology and the easy implementation in a complex microfluidic system, passive micromixers will be the focus of this review. Next,...

This review surveys the advances of microvalves, micropumps, and micromixers within PCR microfluidic chips over the past ten years. First, the types of microvalves in PCR chips are discussed, including active and passive microvalves. The active microvalves are subdivided into mechanical (thermopneumatic and shape memory alloy), non-mechanical (hydrogel, sol-gel, paraffin, and ice), and external...

Micromixing is a crucial process within microfluidic systems such as micro total analysis systems (μTAS). A state-of-art review on microstructured mixing devices and their mixing phenomena is given. The review first presents an overview of the characteristics of fluidic behavior at the microscale and their implications in microfluidic mixing processes. According to the two basic principles expl...

The previous studies of authors on passive micromixers indicated that the micromixers dividing the flow to several layers, such as rhombus micromixers and micromixers with obstacles in the middle of the mixing channel, have higher mixing degree than other types. Also, using of oscillatory inlet velocities is an active method to enhance the mixing efficiency of micromixers. Therefore, in this st...

This paper discusses a flexible layout design method of passive micromixers based on the topology optimization of fluidic flows. Being different from the trial and error method, this method obtains the detailed layout of a passive micromixer according to the desired mixing performance by solving a topology optimization problem. Therefore, the dependence on the experience of the designer is weak...

In this study a biophysical passive micromixer with channel anamorphosis in a space of 370 μm, which is shorter than traditional passive micromixers, could be created by mimicing features of vascular flow networks and executed with Reynolds numbers ranging from 1 to 90. Split and recombination (SAR) was the main mixing method for enhancing the convection effect and promoting the mixing performa...

Passive micromixing can efficiently mix laminar flows through molecular and convective diffusion. Microstructures are expected to be efficient, easily integrated into micromixers, suitable for micromixers over a wide range of Re. This paper presents the enhancement effects multiscale lateral microstructures on flow field characteristics mixing efficiency numerical simulations at Re = 0.01–50. I...

Micromixer is a significant component of microfluidics particularly in lab-on-chip applications so that there has been a growing need for design and fabrication of micromixers with a shorter length and higher efficiency. Despite most of the passive micromixers that suffer from long mixing path and complicated geometry to increase the efficiency, our novel design suggests a highly efficient micr...

Advection driven mixing is essential for microfluidics and poses challenges to the design of microdevices. Force transducers or complex channel configurations provide means for, respectively, active or passive disrupting of laminar flows and for homogenizing the composing fluids. Print-and-peel (PAP) is a nonlithographic fabrication technique that involves direct printing of masters for molding...