A microfluidic mixer with self-excited 'turbulent' fluid motion for wide viscosity ratio applications

In micromixer studies, compared with the design, modeling and characterization, the influence of the fluid properties on mixing has been less discussed. This topic is of practical significance as the properties of diverse biological and chemical liquids to be mixed have large variations. Here, we report a microfluidic mixer for mixing fluids with widely different viscosities. It contains an interconnected multi-channel network through which the bulk fluid volumes are divided into smaller ones and chaotically reorganized. Then, the multiple fluid streams are driven into an expansion chamber which triggers viscous flow instabilities. Experiments with the co-flow of glycerol and aqueous solutions show an automatic transition of the flow from a steady state to a 'turbulent' state, significantly enhancing the mixing. This observation is rather interesting considering that it occurs in a passive flow and the average Reynolds number involved is small. Further testing indicates that this mixer works well at viscosity ratio (chi) up to the order of 10(4).