Magnetic particle mixing with magnetic micro-convection for microfluidics

International audience; In this paper we discuss the magnetic micro-convection phenomenon as a tool for mixing enhancement in microfluidics systems in cases when one of the mis-cible fluids is a magnetic particle colloid. A system of a water-based magnetic fluid and water is investigated experimentally under homogeneous magnetic field in a Hele-Shaw cell. Subsequent image analysis both qualitatively and quan-titatively reveals the high enhancement of mixing efficiency provided by this method. The mixing efficiency dependence on the magnetic field and the phys-ical limits is discussed. A suitable model for a continuous-flow microfluidics setup for mixing with magnetic micro-convection is als…