High Performance Microreactor for Rapid Fluid Mixing and Redox Reaction of Ascorbic Acid

摘要

A novel micro device with a mechanism of split and recombination (SNR) forrapid fluidic mixing and reaction, named a SNR micro-reactor, was designed,fabricated and systematically analyzed. This SNR micro-reactor possessing anin-plane dividing structure requires only simple fabrication. We investigatedthis reactor and compared it numerically and experimentally with aslanted-groove micromixer (SGM). From the numerical results the mixing indicesand mixing patterns demonstrated that the mixing ability of the SNRmicro-reactor was much superior to that of the SGM. From a mixing test withphenolphthalein and sodium hydroxide solutions, the mixing lengths of the SNRmicro-reactor were less than 4 mm for a Reynolds number over a wide range (Re =0.1 - 10). From a comparison of mixing lengths, the results revealed also thatthe SNR micro-reactor surpassed the SGM in mixing performance by more than 200%. As a reaction length is a suitable test of the performance of a reactor, weintroduced a redox reaction between ascorbic acid and iodine solutions toassess the reaction capability of these micro devices ; the reaction lengths ofthe SNR micro-reactor were much shorter than those of a SGM. The SNRmicro-reactor has consequently a remarkable efficiency for fluid mixing andreaction.