Contact Person:
Dipl.-Ing. Philip Tempel
Justus-von-Liebig Weg 6
18059 Rostock
Tel.: +49 381 / 498 - 9115
Fax: +49 381 / 498 - 9092
Email: philip.toellner@uni-rostock.de
Room: Complex building, room 16
Microfluidics and Simulation
Microfluidics deals with issues relating to the handling, manipulation, and analysis of fluids where the fluid volumes are to be handled, and, therefore, the required dimensions of the microfluidic systems are very small. In addition to pure liquids and gases, multiphase fluid systems such as suspensions (especially cell suspensions) and emulsions are becoming increasingly important. Microfluidic systems are used in medicine and biotechnology, e.g., for rapid tests for substances or pathogens, in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries in the form of miniaturized and parallelized lab-on-a-chip systems and reservoirs loaded with active substances by inkjet printing, as well as in materials science for surface functionalization. The processes investigated in these systems include transportation, dosing, separation and filtration, mechanical loading and treatment with ultrasound, heat, and light (UV, visible, and infrared), droplet generation, and active ingredient loading by inkjet printing.
Due to the small fluid volumes in the range of a few microliters, sometimes only a few picoliters in modern applications, the space requirements and energy consumption for manipulating the systems are significantly reduced. In addition, effects and properties that play a subordinate role in the macroscopic world, such as capillary forces and mostly laminar instead of turbulent flows, come to the fore. As a result, microfluidic processes can be adjusted efficiently and precisely, especially under sterile conditions. In addition to various production technologies for the fabrication of prototypes of microfluidic assemblies, modern measuring methods for flow characterization (including a micro-PIV system) and measuring methods for determining various fluid properties (mass density, viscosity, and rheological behavior, contact angle, surface tension, refractive index, vapor pressure, etc.) are available. In addition to experimental investigations, the Chair of Microfluidics is also increasingly carrying out numerical flow simulations (CFD) to identify potential problems at an early stage of development.
