https://doi.org/10.1140/epjs/s11734-025-01739-0
Regular Article
Hybrid magnetic and electroosmotic actuation for high-efficiency microfluidic mixing
1
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Aliah University, 700160, Kolkata, India
2
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, 721302, Kharagpur, India
3
Department of Power Engineering, Jadavpur University, Salt Lake, 700106, Kolkata, India
Received:
16
April
2025
Accepted:
4
June
2025
Published online:
16
June
2025
Unlike conventional active micromixers that rely solely on a single mixing method, this work presents a device comprising a cylindrical mixing chamber that combines different active mixing methods, namely magnetically actuated stirring and localised perturbation induced by alternating current electroosmosis, to achieve greater efficiency than that produced by the constituent processes. The electroosmosis effect is induced by two pairs of diametrically opposed electrodes connected to an alternating current supply. The purpose of the numerical analysis is to ascertain the effect of parameters like the number of blades (n), inlet velocity (ux=0), electrode potential (V0), and size of the micromixer (L) on the mixing efficiency. The analysis is conducted using the finite element method. The results revealed that the novel approach of adopting two active micro-mixing methods gives rise to a mixing efficiency of 95%, within a short period (4 s), which far exceeds the mixing efficiencies obtained when mechanisms operate separately. Such high efficiencies can be attained by utilizing a two-bladed micro-stirrer (n = 2), rotating at a speed of N = 100 per min, with a maximum alternating current voltage of 
at a frequency of 
and an inlet flow velocity of 
at the inlet. The analysis predicts that increasing the number of blades does not significantly affect the performance and can be detrimental to the mixing efficiency. It is found that increasing the maximum electrode potential leads to insignificant changes in the mixing efficiency.
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© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to EDP Sciences, Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2025
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
