A High-Performance Electroosmotic Micromixer: How Sidewall Obstacles Influence Design and Simulation

Electrokinetic flow is a unique class of electric body force-driven flow or flow subjected to electric body force governed by electric field. Effective micromixing of fluids that generate one of the basic operations in microfluidic devices can facilitate a broad variety of applications ranging from biochemical reaction to medical diagnostics. Electro-osmotic micromixers represent an active class of micromixers that utilize alternating current (AC) on electrodes. In this work, an electroosmosis-based micromixer has been designed to mix two distinct fluids; an electric potential is imposed across the electrodes with an operating frequency of 8 hertz and maximum value of 0.1 V. To achieve higher efficiency, the sidewalls of the micromixer are fitted with rectangular-shaped barriers. The simulation results based on this structure show that the micromixer achieves an outstanding efficiency of the order of 98%, thereby proving its vast potential in useful applications in a broad spectrum of disciplines in the areas of microfluidics, bioengineering, and biomedical sciences.