Chemical Engineering & Processing: Process Intensification 147 (2020) 107727

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Chemical Engineering & Processing: Process Intensification

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cep

Numerical investigation on mixing intensification of ferrofluid and T

deionized water inside a microchannel using magnetic actuation generated
by embedded microcoils for lab-on-chip systems
Milad Saadata, Mohammad Behshad Shafiib, Majid Ghassemic
a
K. N. Toosi University of Technology, No.7, Pardis Ave., Mollasadra St., Iran
b
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, P.O. Box, 11155-9567, Iran
c
Department of Mechanical Engineering, K. N. Toosi University of Technology, No.7, Pardis Ave., Mollasadra St., Iran

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: Effective and rapid mixing is crucial for chemical and biological processes. The purpose of the current study is to
Micromixing investigate the effect of steady and varying magnetic field on the mixing of a water-based ferrofluid and two
Microfluidics streams of deionized water inside a microchannel for Lab-on-Chip applications. To this end, the nonlinear
Ferrofluid governing equations, the momentum equation, the continuity equation, the mass transport equation and the
Magnetism
Maxwell-Ampere equations are numerically solved. A commercial code based on the finite-element method is
Lab-on-chip
used and the numerical simulations are validated by the experimental results in the literature. To augment the
mixing performance, the effects of influencing parameters such as the magnetic field strength and frequency,
inlet velocity, relative inlet velocity, and duty cycle (the ratio of signal activation on the total signal length) are
investigated. A mixing efficiency as high as 94.4% only after 13 s is achieved with a peak current of 1 A, a
frequency of 5 Hz, 100 μm/s of inlet velocity, a relative inlet velocity between the ferrofluid and water streams of
0.8 and a duty cycle of 0.2. This proposed model provides a versatile and low-cost solution to intensify mi-
crofluidic mixing performance and develop efficient Lab-on-Chip platforms.

1. Introduction
The development and implementation of microfluidic devices are
gaining attention in fields ranging from academia to industry due to
their small sample volume, low cost and high efficiency [1]. These
systems are being frequently exploited in biology, pharmacy, bio-
chemistry and other fields [2]. By their versatile characteristics, mi-
crofluidic systems can be used for applications varying from detecting
minute amounts of chemical samples [3] to DNA sequencing [4]. To
name only a few components of microfluidic systems, valves, pumps,
detectors, sensors, microreactors and micromixers can be enumerated
[5].
Among these elements, micromixers (miniaturized mixing devices
for at least two different phases [6]) are of especial interest. Due to
miniaturization effects, micromixers typically have low Reynolds
numbers (Re = vL/ , where , v , L and are the density of the fluid,
velocity of the stream, characteristic length of the system and dynamic
viscosity of the fluid, respectively) and the flows are essentially within
the laminar region [7]. This size reduction emerges challenges due to
the dominance of surface effects over volume effects [6]. The inlet
velocity also has limitations, especially when dealing with cells and
bioparticles sensitive to high shear rates. Therefore, designing rapid and
efficient micromixers should be done thoroughly in order to achieve
adequate mixing.
The diffusion time constant, D , is expressed as
L2
D =
(1)
D
where D is the molecular diffusion coefficient, D = kB T /3 dp , where is
the Boltzmann constant (1.381 × 10 23m2kg/(s2K) ), T is the absolute
temperature, and dp is the diameter of magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs),
respectively. The molecular diffusion and thus the diffusion time con-
stant are based on Brownian motion [8]. The typical value of the mo-
lecular diffusion coefficient for water-soluble molecules is around
10 9 m2 / s . The diffusion time constant for a system with L = 60 µm ,
dp = 10nm and = 2.5mPa.s at T= 298K is 206.1 s, which is quite long
especially for biomolecules. Therefore, reducing the required time for
microfluidic mixing is crucial for designing micromixers.
Micromixers generally can be categorized into passive and active
micromixers depending on their operation mechanism [9]. Passive

E-mail addresses: saadat.ac@outlook.com (M. Saadat), behshad@sharif.edu (M.B. Shafii), ghasemi@kntu.ac.ir (M. Ghassemi).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cep.2019.107727
Received 24 July 2019; Received in revised form 8 October 2019; Accepted 5 November 2019
Available online 13 November 2019
0255-2701/ © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
M. Saadat, et al.
micromixers do not have any moving part or energy source other than
the instruments pumping the fluids. Several strategies are present for
passive micromixers such as splitting and injecting of flows [10], dis-
turbance generation by using microchannel bas-relief structures [11],
multi-lamination [12], geometry modification [13–16], strips on mi-
cromixer walls [17], or constraining the flow to generate droplets
[18,19]. However, the usage of passive micromixers faces difficulties
due to their complicated design. On the other hand, active micromixers
employ disturbance to enhance the mixing [7]. Active micromixers
typically exploit mechanical disturbance [20], electrical actuation
[21,22], magnetohydrodynamics [23,24], acoustic streaming [25],
thermal agitation [26], and ultrasonic waves [27] as their actuating
energy [4]. Among these strategies, magnetohydrodynamics provides a
wireless, low cost and versatile solution for a wide range of applica-
tions, e.g. biomolecular tagging, separation, drug delivery [1,28], par-
ticle fabrication for cell targeting [29], and cell sorting [30]. Ferrofluids
(stable colloidal suspensions of single-domain MNPs in a carrier liquid
[31]) have the fluidity advantages of liquids and the magnetic prop-
erties of solids [32]. Therefore, they are suitable choices for micro-
mixers exploiting magnetohydrodynamics.
To fully understand the effect of magnetism on the behavior of ac-
tive micromixing, several studies have been conducted. Bau et al. the-
oretically and experimentally studied the effect of the coupling between
the magnetic and electric fields which induced Lorentz body force and
therefore improved mixing [23]. Lu et al. proposed a mixer with ro-
tating magnetic field which forces a single magnetic bar, or an array of
them, to rotate rapidly [20]. Suzuki et al. proposed a time-varying
magnetic-force-based micromixer consisting of two embedded micro-
coils. They numerically and experimentally showed that these micro-
coils can generate a magnetic field strong enough to deflect and attract
nearby magnetic microbeads [30]. Mao and Koser experimentally in-
vestigated the effect of an alternating magnetic field generated by
embedded copper coils on the mixing of water-based ferrofluid and a
fluorescein buffer solution. They reported a micromixer able to rapidly
mix ferrofluid with the fluorescein buffer solution in a microchannel
forming a 45° angle with respect to embedded coils [33]. Tsai et al.
experimentally investigated the effect of a permanent magnet on the
mixing between ferrofluid and water. They reported a rapid mixing
immediately downstream of the permanent magnet [34]. Wen et al.
experimentally investigated the effect of an AC electromagnetic field on
the mixing of ferrofluid and another stream containing fluorescence dye
(Rhodamine B) within a microchannel. They reported a high mixing
efficiency at the AC frequency range (45 Hz < f < 300 Hz) within 2 s of
electromagnet actuation [35]. In another study, Wen et al. studied the
effects of DC and AC electromagnetic fields on the mixing efficiency.
They achieved a high mixing efficiency at the peak magnetic strength of
approximately 4770 A/m [7]. In another study, Munir et al. proposed a
finite-element mathematical model to illustrate the mixing behavior of
the MNPs under different magnetic field frequencies and different flow
velocities. They found that in order to reach an effective mixing, an
optimum frequency is needed, which depends on the applied magnetic
field, inlet velocity, channel geometry, and MNP size [36]. Zhu and
Fig. 1. Geometry of the model. Grey region represents the initial concentration of the ferrofluid inside the microchannel.
2
Chemical Engineering & Processing: Process Intensification 147 (2020) 107727
Nguyen numerically and experimentally investigated the mixing in a
circular chamber with a ferrofluid under a uniform external magnetic
field. They achieved a maximum mixing efficiency of 90% at a rela-
tively low magnetic flux density less than 10 mT [1]. Owen et al. pre-
sented a novel method for mixing using an array of rotating magnetic
microbeads. They reported a rapid mixing in short channel lengths
[37]. Hejazian et al. reported that a non-uniform magnetic field by
permanent magnets can help mass transport in a microfluidic device
[38]. Azimi et al. studied the liquid-liquid mass transfer enhancement
in a Y-type micomixer using ferrofluids [39]. Maleki et al. numerically
investigated the mixing of ferrofluid with a neutral fluid within a dro-
plet under a magnetic field. They reported a significant improvement in
the mixing efficiency for a specific ratio between the magnetic force and
the shear force [40]. In another study, Cao et al. proposed a novel
design by combing a static gradient magnetic field generated by two
microcoils and an alternating magnetic field generated by two coaxial
Helmholtz coils. They reported a high mixing efficiency of two fluids
within 6 s.
As discussed,micromixers exploiting DC magnetic fields and mag-
netic fields generated by permanent magnets are extensively in-
vestigated. However, studies concerning the mixing under low-strength
and low-frequency magnetic field and its interactions with the velocity
and concentration fields are relatively narrow. Also, to the knowledge
of the authors, studies investigating flow-focusing micromixing in
straight microchannels and the effect of duty cycle on the mixing be-
havior of ferrofluids have not been conducted so far. Therefore, the
purpose of the current study is to numerically investigate the mixing of
ferrofluid with two streams of deionized (DI) water under varying
magnetic field generated by two embedded microcoils. The effects of
magnetic field strength, current switching frequency ( f ), inlet velocity
(u 0 ), relative inlet velocity between the ferrofluid and DI waters, and
duty cycle of the microcoils are explored in order to reach an optimum
micromixer capable of generating enough disturbance to mix the
streams efficiently.
2. Mathematical modeling and implementation
In the following two sections, the governing equations and the nu-
merical procedure are explained, respectively.
A Governing Equations and Boundary Conditions
The schematic of the current design is depicted in Fig. 1. The depth
of the microchannel inside the paper is assumed to be large enough for
the variations in the depth to be negligible in comparison with the
changes in the x-y plane. Also, the surface effects far from the walls
become small and the 2-D results can qualitatively represent three-di-
mensional simulations [41]. Therefore, the domain is assumed to be
two-dimensional (2-D). The computational geometry consists of 3 main
domains: The microchannel, the microcoils generating magnetic field
and air; see Fig. 1.
The governing equations, i.e. the continuity equation, the
M. Saadat, et al. Chemical Engineering & Processing: Process Intensification 147 (2020) 107727

momentum equation, and the mass transport equation for a time- oxide nanoparticles [7]. It is assumed that the magnetic susceptibility
varying system are listed as follows, respectively: varies linearly with the concentration, i.e. = init C where init is the
initial susceptibility of the ferrofluid. This assumption is valid for fer-
. v =0 (2)
rofluids below saturation magnetization, which is the case for our
v model. In Eq. (11), (H ) H using vector analysis can be rewritten as
+ (v . )v = p+ 2v + Fvol
t (3) 2
1/2 H for an electrically-nonconductive fluid [44].
C 2C For the momentum equation, velocity inlet boundary condition is
+ (v )C = D
t (4)
set. At the outlet, the zero-pressure boundary condition is used. At the
where v is the velocity vector, and are the density and dynamic walls, the no-slip boundary condition is applied. For the mass transport
viscosity of the mixture, respectively, p is the pressure and Fvol is the equation, a step function for initial value and inflow concentration
magnetic body force (in ) acting against the fluid. C in Eq. (4) is the (Dirichlet boundary condition) with smoothing around the jump points
dimensionless volume concentration. is used. At the outlet, the no-flux boundary condition is selected. For the
In Eq. (3), gravity is omitted due to miniaturization effects. In Eqs. magnetic field module, coil node is chosen in order to generate a high
(2) and (3), fluids are assumed to be essentially incompressible due to gradient magnetic field with relatively low peak magnetic flux density
the very low velocities. In Eq. (4) it is assumed that the ferrofluid (around 90 G for 1 A current.) The magnetic insulation boundary
particles flow with the velocity field [36], i.e. the convective velocity of condition is applied for the surrounding air.
the MNPs is equal to fluid flow velocity. It is also assumed that the In order to quantify the mixing behavior inside the microchannel, a
MNPs do not agglomerate and thus are monodispersed. The MNPs are parameter has been introduced as a measure to evaluate the mixing
also assumed to be spherical. efficiency:
The Maxwell-Ampere equation reads: h
0
|C C | dy
ME = × 100(%)
×H = J (5) h
| C0 C | dy
0 (12)
where H and J are the magnetic field strength and current density
where ME is the mixing efficiency parameter, C is the concentration
vector, respectively. J is nonzero only for the microcoils and has a for a complete mixing, which is 1/3 for our model and C0 is the inlet
nonzero magnitude only in z-direction. The magnetic flux density, B concentration, which is 0 for DI water streams and 1 for the ferrofluid.
follows the Gauss law: This definition has been checked and a mixing efficiency equal to unity
is achieved with C = 1/3 assuming a steady-state condition with a
B =0 (6)
trivial inlet velocity and a high diffusion constant. In Eq. (12), h is the
The relation between B and H is described by a constitutive relation: height of the microchannel, which is 60µm for our model. Eq. (12) can
be further simplified as:
B = µ 0 (M + H ) (7) h
3 0
|C 1/3| dy
where µ 0 and M are the permeability of the vacuum (=4 × 10 ) 7N/A2 ME = × 100(%)
80
and the magnetization vector, respectively. Introducing a magnetic (13)
vector potential, A , the magnetic flux density takes the form: Eq. (13) and the normalized concentration at the outlet of the micro-
channel are the two factors explaining the quantity and quality of
B = ×A, A =0 (8)
mixing. The higher the mixing efficiency and the uniformity of the
By inserting Eq. (8) into Eqs. (5–7), the magnetic vector potential fi- normalized concentration at the outlet cross section, the better the
nally becomes: mixing performance.
During the mixing process, variations of density and viscosity are
A ×
×A
M =J taken into account using the concept of dimensionless volume con-
µ 0 µr (9) centration [1]:

The magnetic force acting on each particle is therefore calculated as =C ff + (1 C) w (14)

[30]:
Fm = (1 Nd ) µ 0 µr Vm (H )H
where Nd is the demagnetizing factor, which is 0.33 for spherical par-
ticles, µr and Vm are the relative permeability and volume of the MNPs,
respectively and is the initial iron oxide content. The magnetic body
force, neglecting particle-particle interactions, can be expressed as [42]:
Fvol = nF m = n (1 Nd ) µ 0 µr Vm (H ) H = Cv (1 Nd ) µ 0 µr (H
where n is the particle number per unit volume and Cv is the volume
concentration, i.e. Cv = Cv0 C where Cv0 is the initial volume con-
centration. DI waters are assumed to have relative permeability equal to
unity. Mixture magnetization, M , is assumed to vary linearly with the
ferrofluid concentration, M = M0 (C ) , where M0 is the ferrofluid mag-
netization vector. This assumption is valid for ferrofluids under nonzero
magnetic fields [43]. When the applied magnetic field is large enough
or when the magnetization is aligned with the applied field, M0 is
modeled as M0 = H where is the magnetic susceptibility of the iron
= ff e R (1 C ) (15)
(10)
where ff and ff are the density and dynamic viscosity of the ferrofluid,
respectively and R = ln ( w / ff ) where w is the dynamic viscosity of DI
water, which is equal to 1 mPa. s in our model. DI water density, w , is
equal to 997 kg/m3 . The properties of each phase are assumed to remain
constant and change only due to the mixing phenomenon. All simula-
tions are carried out with a constant temperature of 298K , which is
)H reasonable due to low peak currents (I0 ) of our model. In order to make
(11) this study replicable, the properties of a water-based ferrofluid
(EMG707, Ferrotec®) are used with a nominal diameter of 10 nm which
exhibits a superparamagnetic behavior [1], i.e. the ferrofluid has no
magnetic memory [45]. The ferrofluid has a saturation magnetization
of 11 m T, a density of 1.1 × 103kg/m3 , a dynamic viscosity of 5mPa s , a
magnetic particle concentration of 2% and an initial magnetic sus-
ceptibility of init = 1.51. Due to the low magnetic flux density of our
design (around 5.6 m T at I0 = 1 A ), the ferrofluid exhibits linear
magnetization behavior and the assumption of constant susceptibility is
therefore reasonable.
Finally, by defining a duty cycle:

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M. Saadat, et al. Chemical Engineering & Processing: Process Intensification 147 (2020) 107727

Fig. 2. Excitation signal for DC = 0.2 , I0 = 1A and f = 5Hz . When the left coil is
active for 0.2 of the total signal length, the right coil is consequently active for
0.8 of the signal length.

Fig. 3. Dimensionless concentration at the outlet cross section of the micro-

PW channel for different microchannel element sizes. I0 = 1A , f = 0Hz and
Duty Cycle (DC ) =
T (16) u0 = 200 µm/ s . Dimensionless concentration does not vary with element sizes
finer than 5 µm .
where PW is the pulse active time (pulse width) and T is the total
period of the signal for each microcoil, the effect of activation time is
investigated. The default duty cycle for each microcoil is 0.5. By de- normalized concentration uniformity at the outlet is selected. After that,
creasing the duty cycle of the left microcoil, the right microcoil is active these values of frequency and peak current are kept constant and the ef-
for longer intervals and vice versa. To better illustrate this definition, fects of inlet velocity and relative inlet velocity are investigated. Finally,
the excitation current for the left microcoil’s duty cycle equal to 0.2 is the effect of duty cycle is examined and the optimum design is obtained.
depicted in Fig. 2. To visualize the mixing phenomenon, an in-house code based on
Python is written to properly compare the different configurations of
B Numerical Procedure the magnetic field and velocity field and generate customized signals
with different duty cycles.
Different modules of COMSOL Multiphysics v5.3a are used to nu-
merically solve the highly coupled governing equations. The magnetic 3. Results and discussion
field module (MF) is used to calculate the magnetic force acting on the
flow field. The transport of diluted species module (TDS) is also used to The results section is divided into five parts. In section A, the valida-
solve the concentration variation in the domain. In addition, a new tion of our numerical study is presented. In section B, the effects of
function is added to generate a time-dependent excitation current and magnetic field strength and switching frequency are explained. In sections
thus a varying magnetic field, as follows: C and D, the effects of inlet velocity and relative inlet velocity are pre-
sented, respectively. In section E, the effect of duty cycle is investigated.
I (t ) = I0 (flc 2hs (sin(2 ft ), 0.2)) (17)
A Validation:
where I0 is the peak current to the microcoils, which is either 0.5 A or 1
A in this work and flc2hs is the smoothed Heaviside function which is 1 In order to validate the current study, the results are compared with
in the case of sin(2 ft ) > 0.2 and 0 in the case of sin(2 ft ) < 0.2 and the results obtained by Suzuki et al. [30]. Particles with a diameter of
changes smoothly from 0 to 1 in the case of 0.2<sin(2 ft ) < 0.2 . To
provide a phase shift between two microcoils, is added to the argu-
ment of the right microcoil, i.e. when the left microcoil is ON, the right
one is OFF and vice versa. This switching configuration is examined and
it is seen that this combination contributes best to the mixing perfor-
mance. All simulations were handled with this Heaviside function ex-
cept for the duty cycle investigation section reported in section D.
Mesh sizes ranging from 2 µm to 10 µm are evaluated in order to
study mesh. For element sizes less than 5 µm , less than 2% difference in
the dimensionless concentration is observed, as is shown in Fig. 3.
Therefore, the mesh size inside the micromixer is chosen to be 5 µm .
Different domain sizes are examined in order to assure domain-in-
dependency. A domain with a length of 6 cm (along the microchannel)
and a width of 3 cm in the y-direction is selected because any further
increase in the domain size is seen to have less than 1% variation in the
dimensionless concentration. The equations are solved using a time-
dependent study and with a fully coupled approach. Time step is set to
10 3s in order to ascertain numerical accuracy. Deflection of magnetic Fig. 4. Induced horizontal magnetic force from two microcoils carrying 1 A
streamlines has been checked to assure a physical magnetic simulation current on a 1.2 µm particle along the lines starting from the centerline of
in the whole computational domain. microcoils to 100 µm toward the right for different distances from the x-axis.
First, by using the parametric sweep node, all combinations of fre- The locations y = 20 µm and y = 60 µm represent the left and right edges of the
quencies (0, 1, 2.5, 5 and 10 Hz) and peak currents (0.5 and 1 A) are right microcoil, respectively. The results are compared with the data reported
by Suzuki et al. [21]. The y = 40 µm line lies outside the microchannel and
analyzed. The combination with the most mixing efficiency and
therefore there is no net force on that line.

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M. Saadat, et al. Chemical Engineering & Processing: Process Intensification 147 (2020) 107727

Fig. 5. Normalized ferrofluid concentration field for different peak currents and excitation frequencies after 15 s. u0 = 200 µm/ s . Two squares for each concentration
distribution represent the microcoils. Complete mixing corresponds to a concentration index equal to 1/3.

1.2 µm (the median of 1 µm and 1.4 µm , which was used by them), iron
oxide content of 12% and relative permeability of 11.3 are used to
replicate their work, as shown in Fig. 4. Also, a constant current of 1 A
is applied to the microcoils in order to simulate the induced horizontal
force on the line starting from the centerline of two microcoils to 100
µm towards the right, as shown in Fig. 1. Inlet velocity is set to zero in
order to simulate the induced magnetic velocity. A magnetic flux den-
sity around 44 G is calculated in our work for I0 = 0.5A which agrees
with the data reported by Suzuki et al. It is also seen that the trend and
range of the horizontal induced force (Fm _ x ) on each microparticle
agree well with that ( 0.18 pN 0.3 pN ) reported by them [30].
phenomenon relies heavily on Brownian motion. However, for I0 = 1A ,
the magnetic force generates enough lateral disturbance even at higher
frequencies and the fingering structures (similar to that reported by
Wen et al. [7]) emerge, as can be identified in Fig. 5. In addition, Fig. 5
indicates that the complete mixing occurs for concentration index equal
to 1/3.
The normalized concentration and mixing efficiencies for different
magnetic frequencies and currents are shown in Figs. 6 and 7, respec-
tively. As shown, it is seen that the median of the concentration value

B Magnetic strength and switching frequency

Fig. 5 depicts the normalized ferrofluid concentration for different

actuation current and actuation frequency of microcoils. As shown for
I0 = 0.5A , increasing the switching frequency results in deterioration of
the mixing performance. For I0 = 0.5A and frequencies greater than 5
Hz, it is also seen that the mixing is laminar, which results in lower
mixing efficiency and a parabolic concentration profile at the outlet.
This is due to the fact that the peak magnetic force is incapable of
pulling the ferrofluid at low time intervals for relatively higher fre-
quencies, e.g. 10 Hz. This basically means that the flow momentum
dominates the magnetic actuation at I0 = 0.5A and the mixing

Fig. 6. Normalized ferrofluid concentration at the outlet cross section of the

microchannel after 15 s without magnetic actuation and for different actuation Fig. 7. Mixing efficiency at the outlet cross section of the microchannel for
frequencies and peak currents. u0 = 200 µm/ s . different actuation frequencies, u0 = 200 µm/ s and (a) I0 = 0.5 A , (b) I0 = 1 A .

5
M. Saadat, et al.
Fig. 8. (a) Mixing efficiency and (b) normalized ferrofluid concentration for
different inlet velocities at the outlet cross section of the microchannel for
I0 = 1A and f = 5Hz .
falls far below the ideal concentration value (1/3) with a high standard
deviation as well. The value of mixing efficiency without magnetic
actuation is only 69.5% which is obtained with the steady-state con-
dition without any magnetic body force. This clearly indicates that the
mixing due to molecular diffusion suffers severely from inhomogeneous
concentration profile. As can be seen in Fig. 7, fluctuations in the
mixing efficiency directly corresponds to the signal frequency, i.e. the
mixing efficiency oscillates approximately in one second for f = 1Hz
and so on. By analyzing the data of the normalized concentration and
the mixing efficiency, it is concluded that two probable cases are able to
provide highest mixing performance: I0 = 0.5A, f = 1Hz, and
I0 = 1A, f = 5Hz . From Fig. 7a, a mixing efficiency within the range
83%–94% is seen for the former case, while this range is around
88%∼90% for the latter case, as can be seen from Fig. 7b. Thus, the
latter case, i.e. I0 = 1A, f = 5Hz , is chosen as the suitable condition for
the magnetic field due to its smaller fluctuation band. These values of
peak current and frequency are kept constant to investigate the effect of
inlet velocity in the next section.
C Inlet velocity
The effect of inlet velocity on the mixing efficiency is depicted in
Fig. 8a. As was expected, the MNPs at higher inlet velocities are not
able to properly absorb the magnetic force even at a relatively high
switching frequency, i.e. 5 Hz. For higher inlet velocities, the fluid in-
ertia dominates the magnetic field induction and compromises the
mixing performance of the design. It is seen that the more the flow rate
and the inlet velocity are, the less the mixing efficiency becomes, as was
reported by Zhu et al. [1]. For u 0 = 100µm/s , the mixing efficiency is
less for approximately 10 s, while in the long run, this value will
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Chemical Engineering & Processing: Process Intensification 147 (2020) 107727
Fig. 9. The effect of relative inlet velocity for
u w = 100 µm/ s, I0 = 1A, and f = 5 Hz on (a) mixing efficiency and (b) nor-
malized ferrofluid concentration after 15 s at the outlet cross section of the
microchannel.
eventually overtake the higher velocity cases. For shorter intervals, the
MNPs are dominated by the magnetic field and more volume of MNPs
would accumulate around the microcoils. After reaching the so-called
steady state, i.e. approximately 12 s, the fluid inertia forces the MNPs to
move away from the microcoils and the MNPs are able to disperse in the
lateral direction. Therefore, the mixing efficiency experiences a steep
increase for u 0 = 100µm/s . Moreover, from Fig. 8b it is seen that this
inlet velocity can provide a more uniform concentration at the outlet.
Thus, inlet velocity equal to 100µm/s is selected as the best value for our
model.
D Velocity ratio
u
The effect of relative inlet velocity, i.e. ff where uff and u w are the
uw
inlet velocities of the ferrofluid and DI waters, respectively, is shown in
Fig. 9. Higher ferrofluid inlet velocity strongly weakens the mixing
performance of the system to the extent that the mixing efficiency falls
less than that without any magnetic field. This observation can be ex-
plained by the MNPs residence time. At higher velocity ratios, the
ferrofluid nanoparticles do not have enough residence time to properly
absorb the magnetic field and thus provide agitation. In other words,
the inertia of the ferrofluid stream drives the MNPs to flow and this
prevents the ferrofluid to move in lateral direction and thus improve the
mixing efficiency. Therefore, the normalized concentration remains
parabolic and the streams remain unmixed, as can be concluded from
Fig. 9b. However, it is seen that the mixing efficiency is higher for
uff uff
uw
= 0.8 rather than u = 0.5, which is expected to have higher mixing
w
efficiency due to the extended residence time of the ferrofluid stream.
This observation can be justified by the amount of ferrofluid that is
always near the microcoils and the net amount of ferrofluid that is
M. Saadat, et al.
Fig. 10. (a) Mixing efficiency and (b) dimensionless concentration index at the
outlet cross section of the microchannel for different values of duty cycles for
I0 = 1 A, and f = 5 Hz, uw = 100 μm/s, and uff/uw = 0.8. A maximum mixing
efficiency equal to 94.4% is achieved.
Fig. 11. Normalized concentration index at the outlet cross section of the mi-
crochannel for different values of duty cycle for I0 = 1 A, and f = 5 Hz,
uw = 100 μm/s, and uff/uw = 0.8.
present inside the microchannel. By decreasing the velocity ratio and
thus decreasing the amount of ferrofluid into the system, the MNPs
have more time to reside near the microcoils and thus reduce the
amount of magnetic force the streaming MNPs should absorb in order to
increase the mixing efficiency. In other words, the MNPs close to the
microcoils generate a so-called dead volume near the microcoils and
therefore reduce the mixing efficiency. Also, as can be seen in Fig. 9b,
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Chemical Engineering & Processing: Process Intensification 147 (2020) 107727
uff
the averaged normalized ferrofluid concentration for uw
= 0.8 is 0.346
uff uff
while this value is 0.301 for u = 0.5. Therefore, u = 0.8 is selected as
w w
the preferred value for the velocity ratio, which provides 94% of mixing
efficiency.
E Duty cycle
The mixing efficiency and the dimensionless concentration index for
different duty cycles of the left microcoil is shown in Fig. 10. It is seen
that greater duty cycles for the left microcoil slightly reduce the mixing
efficiency and concentration uniformity. This observation is expected
because the right coil will again attract the ferrofluid for lower duty
cycles, while for higher duty cycles, the right microcoil does not have
enough excitation time to agitate the ferrofluid stream again, as can be
observed in Fig. 10b. Also, by too much lowering the duty cycle, the
effect of alternating currents will be diminished and therefore the
mixing efficiency decreases, as can be seen for a duty cycle equal to 0.1.
A duty cycle equal to 0.2 for the left coil can reach a mixing effi-
ciency as high as 94.4% within approximately 13 s, as can be seen in
Fig. 10a. This duty cycle value is able to provide a normalized con-
centration median equal to 0.34 with a standard deviation of only
0.029, as is shown in Fig. 11. The complete mixing is achieved only
after approximately 13 s at the optimum condition, which is 1/15 of
that (206 s) without the magnetic actuation.
4. Conclusion
The effects of magnetic field intensity, switching frequency, inlet
velocity, relative inlet velocity and duty cycle ratio on the mixing
performance of a ferrofluid stream with two DI water streams are nu-
merically investigated using finite-element simulations. The mixing
efficiency parameter, as well as the normalized concentration, provide
good insight into the mixing performance of our micromixer. It is ob-
served that for higher switching frequencies, a higher peak current is
required in order to provide enough agitation and disturbance in the
vertical direction. The suitable switching frequency and peak excitation
current are selected and used to find fluid inertia characteristics best
suited for the magnetic field condition. It is seen that an increase in
inlet velocity causes in deterioration of the mixing performance. It is
also seen that the best relative inlet velocity lies somewhere around 0.8.
At the optimum condition of the duty cycle, which is 0.2 for the left
microcoil, a very good mixing efficiency as high as 94.4% only after 13
s is reported. This model provides an excellent insight into the mixing
phenomenon inside micromixers and can be easily exploited for dif-
ferent geometries and flow conditions to improve the mixing or tagging
of MNPs with biomolecules.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare. All co-authors
have seen and agree with the contents of the manuscript and there is no
financial interest to report. We certify that the submission is original
work and is not under review at any other publication.
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