Enhancement of mixing and chemical reaction in microfluidic devices

Chemical reaction in a microfluidic device (μ TAS) is mainly governed by the mixing speed of the two reacting fluids. Therefore, the enhancement of mixing is very important to reduce the time of reaction. It also reduces the size of a microfluidic device. We examined two methods of the enhancement; the first method is a configuration to make the two fluids into a sandwich shape and the other is heating the fluids by microheaters embedded in the flow channel. The mixing and chemical reaction was examined by mixing of two different colored water layers and chemiluminescence (bioluminescence), respectively. The both mixing methods are promising for the enhancement of chemical reaction.