Active Mixing Strategy With Electromechanical Platform for Lab-On Applications

Abstract

The main purpose of this study is to present a new active mixing strategy that can be used for lab-on-A-chip applications to shorten analysis time. An electromechanical platform composed of stepper and DC motors is designed and manufactured. This platform allows rapid mixing in microwells of a polydimethylsiloxane chip for analysis. Mixing in microwells is performed with a stirring bar spun automatically using the electromechanical platform. Mixing experiments performed at different spinning speeds and different time intervals on the platform. It was observed that mixing was achieved only in 300 ms inside 100 ?L microwell using 4300 revolutions per minute (rpm) spinning speeds. Hence, the proposed mixing strategy showed 200-fold faster mixing than pure diffusion-based mixing. © 2019 IEEE.