• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.28 no.8 s.227
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• pp.1190-1195
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• 2004

A novel manipulation of microfluid width in a microchannel was presented by controlling inflation of a gas boundary. The gas boundary was formed by heating water with a microheater in a semicircular shape from a chamber which was connected symmetrically to the microchannel. The formed gas boundary inflated perpendicularly to the flow direction and, consequently, the microfluid width was narrowed. The inflation and contraction were flexibly like a virtual wall and dependent on two factors: one is the flow velocity of the microfluid and the other is the pressure inside the gas boundary. Dimensions of the chamber and the microchannel width were determined empirically as same of $300\;{\mu}m$ for stable operation. The width of microfluid was manipulated manually with the microheater and could be maintained as up to $22\;{\mu}m$. The stable focusing began to be distorted when the flow velocity exceeded 17.8 mm/s.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.28 no.12
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• pp.1549-1556
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• 2004

We have deigned, fabricated and compared four different types of static chaos microfluid mixers, including the mixers using straight channel flow, microblock-induced alternating whirl flow, microchannel-induced lamination flow, and combined alternating whirl-lamination flow. Among them, the alternating whirl-lamination (AWL-type) mixer, composed of 3-D rotationally arranged microblocks and dividing microchannels fabricated by conventional planar lithography process, is effective to reduce the mixing length over wide flow rate ranges. We characterize the performance of the fabricated mixers, through the flow visualization technique using phenolphthalein solution. We verify that the AWL-type microfluid mixer shows the shortest fluid mixing length of 2.8mm∼5.8mm for the flow rate range of Re=0.26∼26 with the pressure drop lower than 5kPa. Compared to the previous mixers, requiring the mixing lengths of 7∼17mm, the AWL-type microfluid mixer results in the 60% reduction of the mixing lengths. Due to the reduced mixing lengths within reasonable pressure drop ranges, the present micromixers have potentials for use in the miniaturized Micro-Total-Analysis-Systems($\mu$TAS).

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2004.08a
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• pp.196-201
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• 2004

In biometric and biomedical applications, a special transporting mechanism must be designed for the ${\mu}$TAS (micro total analysis system) to move samples and reagents through the microchannels that connect the unit procedure components in the system. An important issue for this miniaturization and integration is microfluid management technique, i.e., microfluid transportation, metering, and mixing. In view of this, this study presents an optimal fuzzy sliding-mode control (OFSMC) design based on the 8051 microprocessor and implementation of a complete microfluidic manipulated system implementation of biochip system with a pneumatic pumping actuator, a feedback-signal photodiodes and flowmeter. The new microfluid management technique successfully improved the efficiency of molecular biology reaction by increasing the velocity of the target nucleic acid molecules, which increases the effective collision into the probe molecules as the target molecules flow back and forth. Therefore, this hybridization chip was able to increase hybridization signal 6-fold and reduce non-specific target-probe binding and background noises within 30 minutes, as compared to conventional hybridization methods, which may take from 4 hours to overnight. In addition, the new technique was also used in DNA extraction. When serum existed in the fluid, the extraction efficiency of immobilized beads with solution flowing back and forth was 88-fold higher than that of free-beads.

• Proceedings of the Optical Society of Korea Conference
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• 2008.07a
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• pp.257-258
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• 2008

• Biotechnology and Bioprocess Engineering:BBE
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.146-153
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• 2006

A passive microfluidic delivery system using hydrophobic valving and pneumatic control was devised for microfluidic handling on a chip. The microfluidic metering, cutting, transport, and merging of two liquids on the chip were correctly performed. The error range of the accuracy of microfluid metering was below 4% on a 20 nL scale, which showed that microfluid was easily manipulated with the desired volume on a chip. For a study of the feasibility of biochemical reactions on the chip, a single enzymatic reaction, such as ${\beta}-galactosidase$ reaction, was performed. The detection limit of the substrate, i.e. fluorescein $di-{\beta}-galactopyranoside$ (FDG) of the ${\beta}-galactosidase$ (6.7 fM), was about 76 pM. Additionally, multiple biochemical reactions such as in vitro protein synthesis of enhanced green fluorescence protein (EGFP) were successfully demonstrated at the nanoliter scale, which suggests that our microfluidic chip can be applied not only to miniaturization of various biochemical reactions, but also to development of the microfluidic biochemical reaction system requiring a precise nano-scale control.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.29 no.1 s.232
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• pp.67-73
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• 2005

The paper presents a single-heater microfluid injector, whose ejected droplet volume is adjusted by digital current path control for a single microheater. The previous droplet volume adjustable methods have used the digital current control for multiple heaters or the analog current control for a single heater, while the present method uses the digital current control for a single microheater. Two different microinjectors, having a rectangular heater and a circular hearter, are designed and fabricated in the chip area of $7.64\;mm{\times}5.26\;mm$. The fabricated microinjectors have been tested and characterized for the number, size, shape and lifetime of the generated bubbles as well as for the volume and velocity of the ejected droplets. The input power for the rectangular heater and the circular heater has been varied in the ranges of $8.7{\sim}24.9{\mu}W\;and\;8.1{\sim}43.8{\mu}W$, respectively. The projected area of the generated bubble has been changed in the ranges of $440{\sim}l,3600{\mu}m^2\;and\;800{\sim}3,300{\mu}m^2$ for the rectangular heater and the circular heater, respectively. The microinjector with the rectangular heater ejects three discrete levels of the droplet in the volume range of $9.4{\sim}20.7pl$ with the velocity range of $0.8{\sim}1.7m/s$, while the microinjector with the circular heater achieves five discrete levels of the droplet in the volume range of $7.4{\sim}27.4pl$ with the velocity range of $0.5{\sim}2.8m/s$.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.32 no.11
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• pp.856-862
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• 2008

This paper presents the characterization of a continuous magnetophoretic microseparator for separating white and red blood cells from peripheral whole blood cells based on their native magnetic properties. The magnetophoretic microseparator separated the blood cells using a high gradient magnetic separation (HGMS) method without the use of additives such as magnetic beads or probing materials. Experimental results show that the paramagnetic capture mode microseparator can continuously separate out 93.5% of red blood cells and 97.4% of white blood cells from diluted whole blood, and the diamagnetic capture mode microseparator can continuously separate out 89.7% of red blood cells and 72.7 % of white blood cells by using applying an external magnetic flux of 0.2 T using a permanent magnet.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.51 no.1
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• pp.10-24
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• 2013

The state-of-arts of multiscale simulation (MSS) in science and engineering is briefly presented and MSS for process development (PD-MSS) is proposed to effectively apply the MSS to the process development. The four-level PD-MSS is composed of PLS (process-level simulation), FLS (fluid-level simulation), mFLS (microfluid-level simulation) and MLS (molecular-level simulation). Characteristics and methods of each level, as well as connectivity between the four levels are described. For example in PD-MSS, absorption column, fluidized-bed reactor, and adsorption process are introduced. For successful MSS, it is necessary to understand the multiscale nature in chemical engineering problems, to develop models representing physical phenomena at each scale and between scales, to develop softwares implementing mathematical models on computer, and to have strong computing facilities. MSS should be performed within acceptable accuracy of simulation results, available computation capacity, and reasonable efficiency of calculation. Macroscopic and microscopic scale simulations have been developed relatively well but mesoscale simulation shows a bottleneck in MSS. Therefore, advances on mesoscale models and simulation tools are required to accurately and reliably predict physical phenomena. PD-MSS will find its way into a sustainable technology being able to shorten the duration and to reduce the cost for process development.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.29 no.3 s.234
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• pp.418-424
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• 2005

We present the design, fabrication and experimental results of 4-bit digital microinjectors, whose ejected droplet volumes are adjusted by the digital operation of a 4-bit microheater array. We design the reference microinjectors as well as its comparative test structures. In the fabrication process, we use a five-mask micromachining process and the total chip size of the fabricated microinjector is $7,640{\mu}m{\times}5,260{\mu}m.$ We measure the ejected droplet volumes and velocities, which are adjusted from $12.1{\pm}1.0~55.6{\pm}14.7pl\;and\;2.3{\pm}0.1~15.7{\pm}0.8m/s.$ respectively, depending on the 15 possible combinations of 4-bit microheater array. We also experimentally characterize the effect of geometric variation including the microheater size, inter-microheater gap, microchannel width and sequential operation of microheater array on the ejected droplet volume and velocity. Among these parameters, we find that the microheater size is the most dominant parameter affected to the ejected droplet volumes and velocities. Thus, the present microinjector has a potential for application to the high-resolution inkjet printers with multiple gray levels or high-precision fluid injectors with variable volume control.

• Korea-Australia Rheology Journal
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.99-107
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• 2007

A nanofluid is a mixture of solid nanoparticles and a common base fluid. Nanofluids have shown great potential in improving the heat transfer properties of liquids. However, previous studies on the characteristics of nanofluids did not adequately explain the enhancement of heat transfer. This study examined the distribution of particles in a fluid and compared the mechanism for the enhancement of heat transfer in a nanofluid with that in a general microparticle suspension. A theoretical model was formulated with shear-induced particle migration, viscosity-induced particle migration, particle migration by Brownian motion, as well as the inertial migration of particles. The results of the simulation showed that there was no significant particle migration, with no change in particle concentration in the radial direction. A uniform particle concentration is very important in the heat transfer of a nanofluid. As the particle concentration and effective thermal conductivity at the wall region is lower than that of the bulk fluid, due to particle migration to the center of a microfluid, the addition of microparticles in a fluid does not affect the heat transfer properties of that fluid. However, in a nanofluid, particle migration to the center occurs quite slowly, and the particle migration flux is very small. Therefore, the effective thermal conductivity at the wall region increases with increasing addition of nanoparticles. This may be one reason why a nanofluid shows a good convective heat transfer performance.