An experimental study on the numbering-up of microchannels for liquid mixing

The numbering-up of zigzag-form microchannels for liquid mixing was experimentally investigated in a multichannel micromixer including 8 parallel channels, based on the Villermaux-Dushman reaction system, with an appropriate sulphuric acid concentration. The results showed that the micromixing performance in such micromixers could reach the same quality as in a single microchannel, when flat constructal distributors with bifurcation configurations were used. The mixing performance did not depend on whether a vertical or horizontal micromixer position was selected. Surprisingly, the channel blockage somewhat increased the micromixing performance in the multichannel micromixer due to the fluid redistribution effect of the constructal distributors. This effect could also be confirmed by CFD simulations. However, the channel blockage resulted in a higher pressure drop and thus higher specific energy dissipation in the multichannel micromixer. The local pressure drop caused by fluid splitting and re-combination in the numbering-up technique could be neglected at low Reynolds numbers, but it became larger with increasing flow rates. The operational zone for the mixing process in multichannel micromixers was sub-divided into two parts according to the specific energy dissipation and the mixing mechanisms.