A microfluidic distributor combining minimal volume, minimal dispersion and minimal sensitivity to clogging

Area of Science:

• Microfluidics
• Fluid Dynamics
• Chemical Engineering

Background:

• Microfluidic flow distributors are crucial for applications requiring precise fluid handling.
• Clogging is a significant challenge in microfluidic systems, impacting performance and reliability.
• Existing distributors like bifurcating (BF) and radially interconnected (RI) have limitations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce and evaluate a new mixed-mode (MM) microfluidic flow distributor.
• To assess the performance of the MM-distributor under varying degrees of clogging.
• To compare the MM-distributor against established BF and RI distributor designs.

Main Methods:

• Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations were employed to analyze flow characteristics.
• Performance was evaluated in both clear and intentionally clogged microfluidic systems.
• Dispersion and dependency on distributor width were key performance metrics.

Main Results:

• In the absence of clogging, the MM-distributor exhibited slightly higher dispersion than BF but significantly less than RI.
• MM-distributor dispersion showed a power-2 dependency on width, similar to BF, unlike RI's disadvantageous power-4 dependency.
• With increasing clogging, the MM-distributor rapidly outperformed the BF-distributor due to its fluid contact zones.

Conclusions:

• The MM-distributor presents a superior compromise for microfluidic applications where clogging is a potential issue.
• Its design effectively mitigates the impact of local clogging while maintaining low dispersion.
• The MM-distributor is recommended for wider microfluidic systems where clogging cannot be ruled out.