Systematic classification of micromixers

This work is a systematic classification of passive micromixers according to their performance. The basis is the introduction of an efficiency measure which relates both mixing quality and pressure drop. This measure is then applied to data from several experimental characterizations. It is found that micromixers can be classified into two groups: inertial micromixers with a strong increase in performance above a critical flow rate and mixers based on lamination with a continuous change of the efficiency with growing Reynolds number. This classification is achieved by analysis of the mixing performance rather than describing the mixing principle.