Convective mixing of small volumes of fluids under local heating

Abstract

The convection under local heating can serve as an effective physical mechanism for mixing small volumes of liquids. We have experimentally demonstrated the mixing of similar liquids using this method. The evolution of the uniformity of the mixture over time was analyzed using a statistical approach. It was found that a small volume of an additive (a few percent of the host layer) can be homogenized in 6-7 minutes.