An active microfluidic mixer utilizing a hybrid gradient magnetic field

Abstract

A simple active microfluidic mixing system based on magnetic actuation strategy of fluids in the microchannel under a hybrid gradient magnetic field was proposed. The hybrid magnetic field, combined of a static gradient magnetic field and an external AC uniform magnetic field, is specially designed to generate periodic magnetic body forces acting on the mixed fluids. Two-dimensional numerical simulation has been performed to investigate the mixing behavior caused by the interactions of magnetic field, fluid flow and convection-diffusion. Numerical results show that the proposed mixer system achieved up to 97% mixing of the two fluids with a small current flowing in micromagnets.