Mixing control in a continuous-flow microreactor using electro-osmotic flow

In recent years, the gradual minimization of continuous-flow chemical reactors, which is stimulated by the interests of pharmaceutical production, has led to the emergence of a new generation of microreactors. A decrease in the thickness of the channels where the species contact and react, forces to search for new, non-mechanical, mechanisms for mixing the initial solutions. In this work, we consider the efficiency of mixing the reactants induced by electro-osmotic flow in a Hele-Shaw configuration with non-uniform zeta potential distribution. We consider the neutralization reaction, which has simple but non-linear kinetics, as a test reaction. The reaction occurs between two miscible solutions, which are initially separated in space and come into contact in a continuous-flow microreactor. The reaction proceeds frontally, which prevents the efficient mixing of the reactants due to diffusion. We show numerically that the mixing of solutions can be effectively controlled by specifying special forms of the zeta potential, which make it possible to lengthen the reaction front by an order of magnitude and increase the yield of the reaction product by several times.

Flow control in a laminate capillary-driven microfluidic device

We present novel flow control methods including valve, mixing control, and flow rate control applicable to the laminate capillary-driven microfluidic devices.

Electric hybrid control method of assembly line robot based on PLC

With the development of modern industry, manipulators have become a kind of mechanical equipment widely used in assembly lines, which not only can improve production efficiency and product quality, but also improve working conditions. Taking the polar co-ordinate manipulator in the automated assembly line as the research object, the programmable logic contoller (PLC) based assembly line manipulator electrical hybrid control method is analyzed. The assembly line robot includes the base, the stepping motor to drive the rotation of the waist, the cylinder controlled arm and the gripper, based on the polar co-ordinate manipulator action requirements, FX2N series programmable logic contoller is selected to analyze programmable logic contoller based stepper motor, pneumatic servo positioning device, pitch cylinder and gripper control method in detail. The components of the assembly line manipulator are organically combined by programmable logic contoller to realize the electrical mixing control of the assembly line manipulator. The experimental results show that the assembly success rate and breakage rate of the assembly line robot controlled by the proposed method are 99.25% and 0.85%, respectively. The transmission performance and anti-noise performance are better than the comparison method, compared with the traditional method, this method has significant performance advantages in control accuracy, cost, practicability and so on and it has a good application prospect.