Rapid proton diffusion in microfluidic devices by means of micro-LIF technique

摘要

The micro-LIF (laser-induced fluorescence) technique was applied to the measurement of pH distributions in a chemically reacting flow in a microfluidic device. Two liquid streams were combined at the junction of a Y-shaped microchannel (100-mum width and 33-mum depth), and allowed to diffuse into each other and react. The results for non-reacting fluids (hydrochloric acid and water) show good agreement with theoretical values calculated using conventional diffusion. When a reaction occurred (hydrochloric acid and sodium hydroxide), a large difference between the measurement results and the theoretical values was observed, indicating rapid proton diffusion compared with the theoretically calculated values.