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Tracking reactions in microflow

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Abstract

Continuous flow microfluidic mixers are a powerful tool for investigating reaction kinetics. However, dispersion of flow speeds and convolution of mixing kinetics and reaction kinetics often limit the temporal resolution. Here, we introduce a method to determine the reaction time for each location of a mixer to analyze dispersion effects. Our approach is based on calculating individual streamlines and following the reaction along them. The results show that varying the flow speed of liquids in the mixer offers a simple way to distinguish the mixing kinetics from the reaction kinetics.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank Eberhard Bodenschatz for helpful discussions, Britta Weinhausen and Christian Dammann for proofreading the manuscript and Jan Goemann for technical support. This work was supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG) in the framework of SFB 755 “Nanoscale Photonic Imaging” and the Excellence Initiative as well as the Helmholtz Gemeinschaft in the framework of Virtual Institute VH-VI-403 “In-Situ Nano-Imaging of Biological and Chemical Processes”.

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  1. Martha E. Brennich

    Present address: Structural Biology Group, European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, 6 Rue Jules Horowitz, 38043, Grenoble, France

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for X-Ray Physics, Georg-August-University Göttingen, Friedrich-Hund-Platz 1, 37077, Göttingen, Germany

    Martha E. Brennich & Sarah Köster

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  1. Martha E. Brennich
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  2. Sarah Köster
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Correspondence to Sarah Köster.

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Brennich, M.E., Köster, S. Tracking reactions in microflow. Microfluid Nanofluid 16, 39–45 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10404-013-1212-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10404-013-1212-y

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