Novel non-equilibrium electrokinetic micromixer with nanoporous membrane fabricated by laser polymerization technique

Abstract

We propose a non-equilibrium electrokinetic (EK) mixer with a nanoporous membrane fabricated on a microfluidic chip by laser polymerization technique. A non-equilibrium EK mixer had an array of nanochannels to generate a vortex using ion depletion and consequent electroconvection [1]. The nanochannels, however, require expensive and complicated fabrication processes. On the other hand, the laser polymerization technique has proved that nanoporous membranes are readily fabricated on a chip and can be used for microdialysis [2] or sample preconcentration [3]. Here, we show for the first time that a nanoporous membrane in-situ fabricated on a microchip can be used for a non-equilibrium EK mixer.