The Effect of Asymmetric Structure on the Mixing in Heart‐Shaped Passive Microreactor

Abstract In this paper, based on the heart‐shaped microreactors (Advanced Flow Reactor, AFR), the asymmetric heart‐shaped passive microreactor is designed. The length ratio (Ratio = L 0 / L ) is defined as a measure of asymmetry. L 0 is the length of the baffle in the minor sub‐channel, and L is the length of the baffle in the major sub‐channel. The total length of the baffle is L t ( L t = L 0 + L ). For unchanged L t , the mixing index obtained from the asymmetric heart‐shaped passive microreactor under the conditions of Ratio = 0.767 and Re = 100 is 53.86 %, which is 9.44 % higher. For changed L t , at Re = 6, the mixing is dominated by diffusion mixing, and the standard error of the mixing index among heart‐shaped passive microreactors with different Ratio is within 0.05 %; at Re = 60, the mixing is dominated by convective mixing. The mixing index of asymmetric heart‐shaped passive microreactor with Ratio = 0.8 can reach 0.4386, which is 2.6 % higher; at Re = 100, the mixing index increases by 2.86 %.