ISSN print edition: 0366-6352 ISSN electronic edition: 1336-9075 Registr. No.: MK SR 9/7 Published monthly

Impacts of channel wall twisting on the mixing enhancement of a novel spiral micromixer

Dariush Bahrami and Morteza Bayareh

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Shahrekord University, Shahrekord, Iran

E-mail: m.bayareh@sku.ac.ir

Received: 23 July 2021  Accepted: 14 September 2021

Abstract:

Micromixer is one of the most widely used components in microfluidic systems to homogenize species or reactants in medical diagnostic processes, DNA, biochemistry, chemical processes, etc. Achieving fast and efficient mixing has always been difficult due to the difficulty of mass transfer in the laminar flow regime. In the present study, a novel micromixer is proposed using the simultaneous impacts of twisted wall and plane spiral microchannel, making the mixer to be efficient at low and high Reynolds numbers. The present simulations are performed using the finite difference method and ANSYS FLUENT 2021 software. It is shown that for a given Reynolds number, the mixing efficiency of the proposed micromixer is 53% higher than that of a T-shaped twisted microchannel and 51% higher than that of a plane spiral one. The mixing efficiency of a ¾ loop of the twisted-spiral microchannel is 7.51% higher than one and a half loops of a plane spiral channel. The proposed microchannel provides a 35% improvement in the mixing quality while the pressure drop is enhanced by less than 0.5%.

Keywords: Micromixer; Spiral; Twisted wall; Mixing efficiency; Pressure drop

Full paper is available at www.springerlink.com.

DOI: 10.1007/s11696-021-01876-5

Chemical Papers 76 (1) 465–476 (2022)