DOI: 10.1615/TSFP3
CHAOTIC MIXING OF MAGNETIC BEADS IN MICRO CELL SEPARATOR
RÉSUMÉ
In micro-scale biological assay systems, the mixing of bio-molecules becomes a critical issue because of their small diffusivity. Chaotic features in a novel micro-mixer designed for cell separation system based on magnetic beads (Suzuki and Ho, 2002) is investigated in detail by means of numerical simulation. The mechanism and the optimum condition to lead the motion of magnetic beads to chaos are clarified. It is found that the chaotic mixing would significantly facilitate the attachment of magnetic beads onto bio-molecules, which practically do not occur without an external perturbation. Active micro-mixers achieve rapid and efficient mixing even in the creeping flow regime, which is not accomplished with the passive micro-mixers.