Inverse Tesla Valve as Micromixer for Water Purification

Abstract

Contaminated water has remained an unsolved problem for decades, particularly when the contamination derived from heavy metals. A possible solution is to mix the contaminated water with magnetic nanoparticles so that an adsorption process can take place. In that frame, Tesla valve micromixer and Fe3O4 magnetic nanoparticles were selected to perform simulations for encounter maximum mixing efficiency. These simulations focus on inlet velocities ratios between contaminated water and nanoparticles and inlet rates of nanoparticles. The maximum mixing efficiency was 44% for the inverse double Tesla micromixer found for the combination of Fe3O4 nanoparticles as the inlet rate and with inlet velocity ratios of VpVc=10.

Keywords

• micromixer
• Tesla
• Fe₃O₄
• nanoparticles
• OpenFoam