What is it about?
The mixing performances of two arrow-mixer configurations in the unsteady periodic flow regimes up to the chaotic regime are fully characterized and, thanks to the synergic use of experimental evidence and numerical results, the observed behavior is explained in terms of flow characteristics and physics.
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Why is it important?
Microreactor technology is receiving increasing interest because it enables an unprecedented control of process conditions, further stimulated by the rapid growth of microfabrication technologies, based on additive manufacturing. Indeed, process miniaturization is the main route towards process intensification, allowing chemical reactions to be carried out with higher yields, less wastes and energy as well as safer conditions with respect to conventional batch/semi-batch processes used for drug or chemical synthesis. Such enthusiasm about microfluidics as a pivotal pathway towards sustainable development, is partially hindered by major technological barriers that ask for a better comprehension of the fluid phenomena at the microscale.
Perspectives
Due to the laminar nature of the flows, mixing is often the rate limiting process and effective mixing is still one of the major challenges, as can be seen from the enormous quantities of passive microdevice geometries proposed in the open literature. Despite the very simple geometry and the laminar flow, different and complex steady and unsteady flow regimes, depending on the Reynolds number, occur which affect strongly the mixing process. This work contributes to the comprehension on the mechanisms that trigger mixing at the micro-scale.
elisabetta brunazzi
Universita degli Studi di Pisa
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Unsteady flow regimes in arrow-shaped micro-mixers with different tilting angles, Physics of Fluids, January 2021, American Institute of Physics,
DOI: 10.1063/5.0033765.
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