Microfluidics

Prof. Suman Chakraborty

Department of Mechanical Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology - Kharagpur

Lecture - 01
Introduction to Microfluidics

Welcome you all to the course of Microfluidics. Today, we will be starting with some
introductory concepts related to microfluidics, and before entering into the topic, we will be
discussing about certain motivations, I mean which give us the necessary impetus to study
microfluidics. So but first of all, we have to understand what is microfluidics? And why is it
important? And what are its possible applications?
(Refer Slide Time: 00:52)

And we will go forward with that, now microfluidics is not a technical term as such I mean it is
not a scientific term, I mean it is sort of an interface between various subjects, and its
interpretation depends on the manner in which you look into it. Like for example like I mean
microfluidics I mean it may have the name micro, but in terms of its scope it is like an elephant,
it has a gigantic scope by itself.

Now if you want to say somebody wants to say what an elephant is, now somebody who knows
the tail of an elephant will say the elephant is like a thread, so obviously it depends on how you
look into it. So microfluidics being a multifaceted subject its interpretation depends on how we
look into it. Now although this is an interdisciplinary course, this course is being offered as a part
of our mechanical engineering curriculum.

So we look into it from a particular perspective and accordingly describe microfluidics likes this
that microfluidics is all about studying flows with characteristic length scales of the orders of
microns. So what is the characteristic length scale? Characteristic length scale is a length scale
over which characteristic changes takes place, so when we say that the characteristic length scale
is of the order of microns.

What we essentially mean is that the characteristic changes that takes place, these changes take
place over length scales of the order of microns. Now when we say microns there is no great
sanctity about it, it would also be nanometers, now there is a closely related subject which is
called as nanofluidics, a part of which we will also cover as a part of this particular course. And
when we go down to the length scale of nanometers, it is not necessary that all the physics which
is occurring over micrometer scale becomes invalid right.

Over nanometer scales also typically beyond a critical length scale, the physics which is
occurring at over micrometer scales is still valid, but as you go down to length scales over which
continuum considerations do not work, continuum hypothesis does not work, and you have to
treat the discreteness of the individual system that means you have to consider the discreteness of
the molecular arrangement you have to consider the molecular entities and all those things.

Then the paradigms shift a little bit and I mean many of the continuum considerations which we
will be considering as the major part of this particular course will not be valid, and then you have
to go for molecular understanding and molecular simulation. So a part of this course we will
dedicate towards that, so understanding nanofluidics and how to effectively address nanofluidics
through molecular simulations.

But we have to understand that nanofluidics does not necessarily demand molecular simulations,
I mean it is not always necessary, sometimes by stretching a little bit of imagination towards the I
mean modifying the continuum description one can address many nanofluidics problems. So
whatever I am giving as like the description of microfluidics is a way in which as fluid dynamics
I look into microfluidics.

So obviously I will show you that microfluidics is an interdisciplinary subject, and it is not
possible for an individual to know all the facets of microfluidics from all the angles and from all
fundamental consideration, but we will briefly talk about all the facets.
(Refer Slide Time: 05:11)

So when we say the characteristic dimensions of the order of microns, I mean as engineers we
should have a feel of I mean how I mean how thick or how thin these are. So typical dimensions
of the orders of microns are like dimensions of human hair like so that is the typical thing that we
talk about, so if you have a transparent substrate on which you have a micro channel it will look
like a scratch, if you look by naked eye.

So microfluidic devices so and their dimensions, so if you look at this view graph, you will see
that I mean there are wide range of dimensions of microfluidic devices. So I mean as I said that
there may not be sort of hard and fast distinction between microfluidics and nanofluidics, and I
mean you can think of nanofluidics devices even of the order of angstroms, I mean it is not that
engineering has made it possible to make those devices very effectively.
But we have to understand that the whole advent of the subject microfluidics had come into the
picture because of the advancement in micro and nano manufacturing, the micro and nano
fabrication processes, because many of the underlying scientific issues have been studied and
have been reasonably well understood for a long time. But engineers could not translate those
understandings in the forms of devices until and unless there has been a significant advancement
in fabrication microfabrication and nanofabrication.

So keeping that inspirit fabrication over small scales will also be a part of this course. So we will
sort of I mean try to see how fabrication influences fluidics and how fluidics influences
fabrication, I mean these considerations we will come across. Now so we can start with
dimensions of the orders of angstroms to nanometers and micrometers, and then we can have I
mean sort of large length scales where the microscale physics may not be that important.

But we have sort of an intermediate length scale, where some effects of microscale or apparent
although not very significant. Like for example, in engineering typically we talked about
microchannels nano channels, there is a terminology called as mini channel. Mini channel is sort
of like it is not micrometer dimension, but it is not also macroscopic channel, so it has its
characteristic features somewhat in between the microscopic and macroscopic channel.

So these are all terminologies I am just trying to make you familiar with the terminologies, but
keep in mind that these are not scientific terminologies, these are terminologies which have been
coined by people to described certain technologies. So like if you are thinking of like I mean how
these dimensions related to real applications like when you talk of angstrom to nanometer, you
think of molecular dimensions like of the order of angstroms.

And then nanometer to micrometer you have smoke particles, viruses and I mean over this
regime you have nanodevices, and the common buzzword nanotechnology is used for
technological applications over these length scales of nanometers to microns. So a little bit of
larger length scales I mean you think of like other substances which closely relate to microfluidic
devices like for example bacteria.
And you can think of substances or devices which are closely associated over these length scales
like microneedles, microreactors, microfilters, micro analysis systems. So these are many
terminologies which are used for microfluidics devices. Now microfluidic devices are commonly
associated with certain names, for example many microfluidics systems are integrated in the
form of a chip.

So it is like a credit card type of device on which you can have all operations of a laboratory like
mixing, metering, valving, pumping, all these fluidic operations which you normally do in a
process industry, processing industry it may be chemical processing, biological processing, all
these are miniaturized in the form of a small chip. And these types of devices are called as the lab
on a chip or laboratory on chi.

So the lab on a chip and many of this lab on a chip devices are used for certain chemical analysis
or biotechnical, biotechnological or biomedical analysis, and then these have alternative names
as micro total analyses systems, and I mean these names are so popular that like for example
there is a journal called as lab on a chip or you have like a conference named micro test. So there
are I mean these names have become quite popular to the community.

So and just to give you an idea of the volume flow rates that these devices can handle, so like
typically they will be in the range of femtoliter, picoliter to nanometer to microliter, and not very
commonly beyond microliter. Because beyond microliter you enter into millimeter dimensions of
length scales, so typically whenever we are talking about microfluidic devices, we are essentially
talking of devices which can handle small volume flow rates or which are designed to handle
small volume flow rates.
(Refer Slide Time: 11:54)
Now when we say microfluidics of course all of you have a fair idea that these days, micro and
nano technology these are very fascinating areas of research, and these are very popular areas of
research not just in any specific country but globally. The question is that why we should go for
microfluidic devices; I mean what are the advantages that these devices are going to give us is it
totally because of fashion or there are scientific or technological interest in the background.

So here are some reasons why we go for miniaturization, so this is not true just for microfluidics,
but for any devices where we are intended to miniaturized the product. So the first point is one
can minimize materials and sample consumption, so why you can minimize the material
consumption is because the device itself is small, now sample consumption I will give you an
example let us say that you want to perform a blood test.

So a medical diagnostic is one of the applications where which we will discuss briefly now and
much more elaborately as we proceed in the course. Now if you want to test a blood sample, if
you have one drop of blood then the amount of chemical reagents that are necessary to test the
sample also be a small amount. On the other hand, if you have a large amount of blood as a
sample, then you require large volume of chemicals.

So we can see that in a miniaturized system you may require a small value of the reagents to
achieve the necessary task, not only that because of miniaturization one can run the device with
low power. So one can reduce the power budget many of these devices operate first or operate
because of favorable scaling over micro and nano scales. So we will discuss about this, the
different forces scale favorably as you reduce your dimensions.

For example, if you reduce your dimensions, you will see that surface forces become more
important, so surface forces can help the transmission of fluid which are otherwise active but not
so important over large scale systems. So one can use that favorable scaling increase selectivity
and sensitivity with non-linear effects exploitation of favorable scaling laws which I have already
explained, and exploitation of new effects.

So some effects which are not when I say new, what I mean is that which are not very intuitive,
which are not very intuitive over large scale some of those effects may become important. So
keeping that in purview, we say that miniaturization is not always the fashion, many times it is
essential not only that miniaturization achieve certain things which is very practical, it makes the
device small, it makes the device portable.

See you think of the old day computers gigantic, and you think of the modern day computing
gadgets, I mean which have become slimmer and thinner, so you can carry them and you can
work while you are traveling. So I mean it is not always does the scientific need, but their
demand from our fasts changing lifestyle that has also given rise to the advent of miniaturization
based technology. Question is what are its applications? Or why is it important?

We will go for applications, but first why is it important? Microfluidics is required and the
application demands handling of very small volumes, as we saw in the previous slide that the
volume flow rates that are handled in a microfluidic device, this volume flow rate are small.
Because the volume flow rates are small, you cannot use these devices for applications where
large volumes are required.

So you essentially use microfluidics for those applications which require the use of small
volumes like inkjet printing, in fact inkjet printing or inkjet printers are sort of the first
generation microfluidic products used in the industry it was in early 1980s that inkjet printers
were introduced in the market, and in those days the subject was not known as microfluidics, I
mean it evolved as a subject by itself.

But I mean that was one of the technological revolution so far as microfluidics is concerned. You
can use small volumes for precise drug delivery, for example if you want to administer very
small volume flow rate of drug very precisely to certain deceased cells, then you can use
microfluidics. Cost or performance advantages, in many cases we want to use microfluidic
devices because they are less expensive, and they have some advantages of performance by
exploiting the science.

So microfluidics is sort of a located at a nice interface between science and technology, so on one
hand the objective of studying microfluidics from an engineering point of view is to make new
devices for certain applications, but these new devices have to be designed based on some
fundamental scientific principles which come from the basic principles of physics, chemistry and
so on.

So it is at a nice interface improve reproducibility, accuracy and reliability is what we expect that
we have in microfluidic devices, although there are questions I mean or issues to be addressed if
you want to ensure this. Now there are certain terminologies called as self-assembly and self-
repair, and which are closely linked with any of the microfluidic systems, although those are
more associated with nanotechnology then with the little bit larger scale systems.

And many of the microfluidic devices like for example if you think of a microfluidic device for
blood extraction, so many of the microfluidic devices they are not just functioning nicely
because of the small scale effects but they may also have minimal invasive pen. So these are
some of the features that we look for in microfluidic devices.
(Refer Slide Time: 19:21)
Now see I am teaching this microfluidics course to you, but I must confess that I am not a big
expert in microfluidics, because microfluidics is interdisciplinary. So it requires the
agglomeration of so many disciplines that it is impossible for one individual to be an expert in
the entire gamut of microfluidics. So for example, let me talk about what are the sort of
specializations that are needed to address a microfluidic problem.

And once you understand this you will appreciate that any study of microfluidics is basically a
team effort, and how does it on. So microfabrication like to study microfluidics, you require to
fabricate microchannels or if you go down to even smaller scales fabricate nanochannels, these
are jobs of fabrication or manufacturing specialist. Chemistry, over small scales surface
chemistry can dictate the flow in a very interesting way.

We will later on address those issues and see that how does surface chemistry alter fluid
dynamics, so but for the time being just take as it is that chemistry of the surface can dictate the
flow in a very interesting way, so one requires chemistry. Biology, it is not that one has to be core
biologists to work with the interface between biology and microfluidic, but most of the or many
of the challenging applications in microfluidics are actually from the area of biology.

So that is why many times like I have seen this experience, I gathered this experience that I mean
when somebody some person some professional working in microfluidics is asked that well what
is your like specific area of application in microfluidics. He says I work in 2 areas, one is Bio
applications and another one is non-bio applications, that means it shows that bio applications is
sort of a big thrust area of activity by itself.

So it is so important that a big application area of microfluidics has emerged which we call as
biofluidics, and that also we will cover as a part of this particular course. So and again the
importance of the subject is such that there is a journal called biomicrofluidics, so like
biomicrofluidics is a very active area of research. Mechanics, like I mean there are hardly
engineering systems which we can think of without thinking of basic mechanics.

And microfluidics is of no exception, so mechanics is important and in particular we will talk

about mechanics over micro and nano scales. So sometimes the classical laws of mechanics a
little but sort of they have to be explained in the light of small scales not that they would become
totally invalid, but they have to be explained in the contest of small scales and that is where
mechanics become so attractive in small scales.

Control systems, so when we say control systems, what we essentially mean is that like just like
any engineering system, if you have a microfluidic system which execute certain tasks, I mean
many of the microfluidic systems are electromechanical systems, and closely related area which I
mean which can be thought of as the genetic area is microelectromechanical systems or MEMS.
So sometimes we associate microfluidics very closely with MEMS.

And in fact many of the MEMS applications microfluidics appears to the building block, so in
many of these systems you have to design a very nice control system, for the system to operate
efficiently, and control systems become critical. Micro-scale physics and thermal fluid transport,
and that is where we will mainly focus on in this particular course, so by micro-scale physics
what we mean is that, like the classical mechanics of fluids that we study commonly.

I mean many times, I mean it is not that all those equations that you have learnt in your basic
fluid mechanics will be invalid, but those equations sometimes do not take into consideration
certain features which are not important at large scale. But as you scale down your system those
features are important, and those features have to be taken care of. Numerical modeling,
numerical modeling is a very important area or a very important aspect of microfluidics.

Now what we say numerical modeling, we have to keep in mind that it is still an numerical
modeling of fluid flow problems, so broadly in the purview of CFD but not always traditional
CFD, because the traditional CFD you can use when the continuum configuration are valid. So
that traditional CFD considerations are used for many microfluidic applications with certain
modifications maybe in the boundary condition, and sometimes in the description of the effective
properties of the fluid and so on.

On the other hand, when continuum considerations are not valid, then one has to go for
molecular simulations, so molecular simulations I mean either explicit execution of the dynamics
over molecular scales that means directly capturing the dynamics of individual molecules which
is called as molecular dynamics, or some statistically averaged considerations over simulated
molecules, and like these are called as Monte Carlo simulations for example.

So on one side you have molecular level simulations, on another side you have continuum
simulations, but there are some simulation paradigms which sort of act as a bridge between these
2, like which are neither fully of continuum nature or they are apparently of continuum nature,
but they incorporate certain molecular considerations not by explicitly capturing the molecules,
but implicitly. And on the other hand you have the explicit capturing of molecules.

The in between paradigm is called as mesoscopic simulation, it is neither the continuum scale
nor the molecular scale, something in between which is called as mesoscopic simulation. And
one of the very well-known mesoscopic simulation techniques is the Lattice Boltzmann method.
So there are issues of numerical modeling, and in microfluidics there are research groups
working solely dedicated towards numerical modeling.

Material science, now I mean can you think of an engineering system without due consideration
of materials, it is impossible because like in a microfluidic device the surface effects have a
strong role to play, and the surface effects are in many cases dictated by the material property of
the surface. So you can engineer the surface properties by designing the materials, so and that
you can choose a particular material for some functionality, you can create the gradient of the
functionality.

For example, you can make a surface with weightability gradient, so instead of a constant
weightability, you can make weightability gradient surface, and that weightability gradient
surface can use very low energy to achieve certain fluidic operations. So it is possible to like
achieve magical fields by playing with the surface, and when we try to achieve that the material
plays a very important and deciding role.

System integration and packaging, so system integration and packaging when we say what we
essentially mean is that like essentially if you want to make a usable microfluidic product, it like
if you want to translate it from the laboratory scale to a usable scale maybe a commercial scale.
So you have to package the product in a proper way, and I mean this packaging has also
scientific issues by this packaging I do not mean a business oriented outlook towards packaging
that is a part of that.

But one needs to take care of many scientific issues as well for the packaging and system
integration. Validation and experimentation, so just like the numerical modeling is important, it is
in but by simulations whatever design parameters we get, now weather those design parameters
are good for operating a particular device, how do you know? So for that you have to validate
and do experiments.

So validation and experiment reliability engineering, so I have not listed many more disciplines,
but just to make you feel understand make you feel that microfluidics is not just the subject of
say may be mechanical engineering, chemical engineering, biology, chemistry like that or
physics. So it is a subject where all aspects of science and engineering they merge together to
work on certain applications, so it is not possible for an individual to be experts in all these.

So now what should be the outlook? See I can share my personal outlook with you that how I
perceive microfluidics research, see it is very important that you may not know all aspects of
microfluidics in depth, but you should try to develop a working knowledge to interface with
experts of those. But you should yourself be a domain expert in at least one of the areas that
means at least in one of these facets you should be the last one.

So it should not be an approach that by being a microfluidic engineer, we intend to be a jack of

all trades but master of none that should not be the spirit. So we should be at least master of one
particular aspect of microfluidics, and for other aspects we should have a working knowledge to
interface with the experts, and that is our team work in microfluidics develops. Now what are the
applications of microfluidics?

So we have already discussed that what are the aspects that need to be taken care of for
microfluidics applications? So using if all those features are there in a device, then there are very
special applications that we talked about mixing and reactive system analysis. So why mixing is
important in microscale? So let me just give you a perspective, so you know that when you think
of classical fluid mechanics, when you think of mixing the first concept that comes to your mind
is turbulent flows.

Because turbulent flows because of enhance the diffusive transport have good mixing, now in
microfluidics typically because of the small length scale the Reynolds number is small, and at
low Reynolds number turbulence effects cannot be realized. So you have to design the device by
clever means to achieve mixing without necessarily having turbulence. So that is a big challenge
by itself, and but why is mixing important? You may always ask that why should we have
enhanced mixing?

Now to have complete reaction, if you have say 2 reactance this reactance must first fix before
they react, and so if you want to achieve rapid reaction you need to achieve rapid mixing as well.
So to enhance the rapidity of a process of a chemical process maybe it is important that you have
also rapid mixing. So mixing is a big problem in microfluidics. Fundamental understanding of
bio-physical processes.
Fundamental understanding of biophysical processes like for example, I will talk about this in
detail but just to create a perspective that in human body there are cells, and cells are there in
blood vessels of various dimensions. So blood vessels like there is the hierarchy of blood vessels
and this hierarchical length scale variation is very interesting, you have large arteries which are
macroscopic scale futures, large veins, small arteries, small veins, then arterioles, venules and
microcapillaries.

Microcapillaries in human body are microchannels, so now it is I mean there are many
outstanding questions, I will talk about one outstanding question that when a cancer cell is
traveling through this circulatory system, it there is a stage of cancer and cancer cell from its
origin moves to a distant location within the human body by the bloodstream, and creates the
new cancerous growth at a new location, this process is known as metastasis.

And it is a very critical stage in cancer progression, and during that stage the cancer cell has to
also pass through microcapillaries, and because of the extremely stressful condition it is very
difficult for a normal cell to survive under those conditions, but a cancer cells and survive, we
will try to address this question later on, and see that how microfluidics can solve this problem.
But you can understand that bio-physics of cancer progression or hemodynamics the dynamics of
blood in small capillaries in human body.

So all these things are related to fundamental understanding of bio-physical processes, and these
are critical, now why we say these are critical because these are not straight forward extensions
of the traditional understanding of fluid mechanics. Let me talk about a very simple apparently or
elusively simple problem, like flow of blood through arteries and veins, or even flow of blood
through microcapillaries.

Now when you think of its analogy with the large-scale engineering system, it is like its closest
analogy is flow of water through pipes, which we study normally in fluid mechanics in the
undergraduate fluid mechanics course. Now if I ask you that what is the difference between that
and flow of blood through a blood vessel that you will have certain ready answers, what are
those answers? Like for example, like you may that blood is a much more complex fluid than
water.

I mean blood may have non-Newtonian characteristic over certain regime, and it may hold
Newtonian characteristic over some other regime, and the effective or apparent viscosity of
blood varies in a very complicated way with the blood chemistry like blood composition and so
on. So blood is not a very simple fluid, having appreciated that it is not that the blood the
geological aspects of blood remain a mystery, it is not like that.

Geological aspects of blood have been reasonably well studied and extensively understood by
people, so one can borrow that understanding for studying the flow of blood through blood
vessels. There are in fact other more subtle complications, the second point about this flow of
blood through blood vessels is that the blood vessels are flexible, unlike the standard rigid pipes
these are flexible.

But mathematicians may argue okay it is fine let it be flexible let us assume the radius of blood
vessel R=R0+R1 cos omega T+R2 sin omega T whatever some nice Fourier Series maybe, but
you know in reality the blood vessel the local diameter of the blood vessel varies in a very
complicated way with a local blood pressure, and it is not universal that is the difference between
the mechanical world and the biological world.

In the mechanical world, when we say that this is the material it will behave in this way, the
same material will behave in that way provided the other conditions are the same, but human
beings the systems is very complex, like you will have a certain like variation of your blood
pressure based on certain emotional conditions which are not sort of mimicked in the same way
by some of your other friend.

So you do not have the universal rule of how the diameter of the blood vessel varies with the
local blood pressure, it is so much individualistic that it is very difficult to bring it in the context
of the fundamental mathematical model. So you see that an apparently simple problem in the
living systems gives rise to such a complex understanding which is yet unsolved problems. So
fundamental understanding of bio-physical processes.

Manipulation and analysis of biological macromolecules like DNA, RNA, I mean these are
important and I will show you that later on, we will discuss that how these are related to
biotechnological applications that is handling of DNA, RNA, handling of cells, handling of
proteins and all these. Biomedical diagnostics, biomedical diagnostics is a big area.

And biomedical diagnostics, I mean I will discuss about this in more details that what are the
demands of biomedical diagnostics which are more aptly address by microfluidics then the
traditional technique, that why microfluidics is so important for biomedical diagnostics. Drug
delivery blood extraction, I mean these are all related to medical applications. So biomedical
diagnostics, drug delivery, blood extraction altogether there is a whole bunch of applications of
microfluidics in medical sciences.

And because it is mainly an engineering interface with medical sciences, these days it is given a
terminology called as healthcare engineering. So microfluidics is sort of an essential element of
healthcare engineering. Now non-biological applications there are several applications like the
inkjet printing, I have already discussed with you that why inkjet printing is important, and I
mean important as the microfluidic device.

Because it is traditionally like one of the very early microfluidic devices that was introduced.
Electronics cooling, so electronics cooling is again another area, see where you want to have a
miniaturized chip, which because of heating it is trying to fail in terms of its thermal design then
it has to be cool. Now that along has to be done by a system which is matching in terms of
miniaturization with a small device itself.

So if you have a small device you cannot have a very large fan to cooler small device, I mean
you may have of course but that will kill the purpose of miniaturization. So you require
microfluidics systems to cool electronic devices and systems and electronics cooling are like a
more scientific terminology that is associated with this field is called as thermal management of
electronic devices and systems.
(Refer Slide Time: 42:17)

Now we have learnt about the microfluidics, I mean its fundamental inception and I mean what
are the disciplines involved in study microfluidics, some basic motivations in studying
microfluidics, and of course some applications. Now we will sort of get into it further by noting
the fundamental flow physics, how are microfluidics different from or microfluidic devices
different from macro flows?

This is important because all of you have a particular perception about fluid mechanics, because
of your exposed to the classical subject of fluid mechanics. Now if all those issues can directly
be used in microfluidics, there would perhaps not be a separate need of introducing another
subject. So one has to prepare this little bit of a scientific motivation that in terms of flow physics
how things are different.

As the length scale becomes smaller surface effects tend to dominate why? The reason is that as
you reduce the length scale, the surface area by volume ratio increases.
(Refer Slide Time: 44:02)
Let me give you an example, I mean not typically related to microfluidic devices, but let us say
that you have a sphere of radius r okay, so if you have a sphere of radius r, then what is its
volume? 4/3 pi r cube, and what is its surface area? 4 pi r square, so area by volume is
proportional to r square/r cube that is 1/r. So as you reduce r, the area by volume ratio increases
right, so this is a typical example of course there are hardly microfluidic devices which are
spherical.

So I do not want to mean that you borrow the understanding exactly on the face value, but just to
give you the concept if you take r as the length scale, if you make the length scale smaller and
smaller, then area by volume ratio of the geometrical features increases. So when the area by
volume ratio increases what essentially happens is that whatever forces are important over
surface, that forces become more prominent.

So that means inertia forces may turn out to be negligible in comparison to electrostatic,
electrodynamic, viscous, or capillary effects. That does not mean that inertia forces are important
for all microfluidics problems, please do not keep this prejudice in mind, there are many
microfluidic devices which operate with important inertial effects, and that particular aspect of
microfluidics is known as inertial microfluidics.
So because it covers certain special problems, other than those special problems the more
common problems are associated with negligible inertial effects as compared to other effects.
Next point layering of fluid atoms parallel to the atomic layers adhering the solid boundary may
give rise to strong local density fluctuations. So when we say density, we do not mean density as
a continuum property, if the local number density of molecules.

The local number density of molecules near the wall there is a structure that the molecules
assume, now these structures occur over length scales which are small, but if the device length
scale itself is comparable with that length scale, then the near wall variations in density or the
near wall density distribution may have a strong role to play. So in some case there may be less
density of liquid in the near wall region.

And then that kind of situation is typically encountered for hydrophobic surfaces, that is surfaces
which have phobia for water for example that is what I mean is a literal meaning of hydrophobic.
So on the other hand you can have surfaces where there is a strong local distributions of liquid,
so these density distribution differences may alter the local fluid dynamics. So they might
essentially invoke certain like sort of non-intuitive company conditions like slip boundary
conditions instead of no slip.

Now the slip may also may occur, we will discuss about this in details, but just to summarize I
mean just give you some initial thoughts, slip may occur when liquid molecules are sheared very
vigorously, so that means so liquid molecules let us say they are attached to a solid boundary.
Now with a very high shear rate it is possible to dislodge them from the attraction of the solid
boundary, so how is that shear rate possible?

That share rate it is so high that normally that will not occur, but in devices approaching
molecular length scales it may be possible, because the shear rate is what? To think of a fluid
flow, you have a flow between 2 parallel plates, the shear rate like out of the 2 parallel plates,
one plate is moving at a velocity relative to the other. If that relative velocity is u like let me
draw a schematic to explain this.
So you have 2 parallel plates let us say this plate is moving with a velocity u relative to the
bottom plate, and the gap is H, so the shear rate is related to u/H okay, so at a very high shear
rate the liquid molecules may be dislodged, so high shear rate will require as very small value of
H. So for normally engineered channels that may not that kind of high shear rate may not take
place, but in channels which approach molecule dimensions that may take place.

And then you can have a literal dislodging of molecules liquid molecules from the solid
boundary. This kind of slip behaviour is more common for gases, because of relatively weak
molecular compactness. For liquids it is very difficult to dislodge the liquid from its
surroundings because of strong level of attraction, but because the liquid is a relative dense
system. For gases, the intermolecular attraction is relativity weak.

So it is possible it is more easily possible to dislodge the gases, and slip in gas flows is not a very
uncommon thing over micro and nano scales, we will discuss more about this just I am trying to
give you some preview of I mean what are the interesting scientific features.
(Refer Slide Time: 50:48)

Different diffusion characteristics near the wall in comparison to that of the bulk may give rise to
anomalous diffusion. So normally when we solve a problem, we use a problem of mass transfer,
we use the diffusion coefficient. Now that diffusion coefficient many times we use a common
value for both the bulk and the near wall regime, but the near wall behavior may be different
from that of the bulk in a small scale system where surface effects are very important.

So one has to think of a different aspect of diffusion as we go from the surface to bulk. Surface
characteristics of the device strongly influenced the flow behavior, this is a quite intuitive and it
follows from the argument that in a microfluidic device the area by volume ratio is large.
Therefore, surface effects are important, so surface characteristics like surface charge, surface
weightability, these strongly influences the flow behavior.

So that is where like for example if surface charge is important, then you have to consider the
electrical aspects, so the physics of the charge dynamics or the charge distribution close to the
wall will affect the fluid flow. So these types of problems are called as multi-physics problems,
so where the physics of fluid flow is not just plain and simple fluid dynamics, but it is related to
electrostatics, electrodynamics and so on.

So in many of the microfluidic problems you essentially have to address multi-scale multi-
physics, and also physics over multiple scales that is a length scale which is very close to the
wall, and the system length scale which dictates the bulk behavior. So multiple length scales or
multiple physical scales and multiple physical features, so these are called as multi-scale multi-
physics problems. And many of the microfluidics problems are like that.

Rheology of the fluid may be very significant for flow manipulation and control, so the
constitutive behavior of the fluid that is the stress versus strain rate relationship may be very
significant, and the manner in which the fluid behaves close to the wall may be different from
that in the bulk, as I already mentioned. And the rheological aspects may interface with that and
by that you can manipulate the flow in a very interesting way.

Surface roughness being comparable to the system length scale is likely to play a very critical
role, this is something which is very important even for laminar flows. The classical fluid
mechanics says that for fully developed laminar flow, the product of friction factor and Reynolds
number is a constant, which is independent of the surface roughness, just is dependent on the
geometry of the cross section of the channel.

So this is the classical fluid mechanics understand, now these understanding assumes that the
surface roughness length scales are not comparable to the system length scales, but in
microfluidics in many of the microchannels or nanofluidics channels, you may have the surface
roughness elements comparable to the characteristic system length scales. And then this may
influence the flow non-trivial, we will discuss about this.

And all these aspects taken into account mean that micro flows are often characterized by multi-
physics and multi-scale features which I have already discussed. So we have discussed some
aspects of microfluidics, and I mean how these are different from macroscale flows, and what
could be possible applications, what are the challenges and so on. And the way in which we will
proceed further is like this.

That like we have to think of that what microfluidics can do by stretching our imaginations,
before getting into the mathematical description of the subject. So I mean we will of course I
mean after one or 2 more lectures move on to the mathematical description of microfluidics
which will build up from the classical fluid mechanics. I am not assuming that all of you have
sufficient background of classical fluid mechanics.

Because I understand that many of you come from diverse backgrounds, and it is an
interdisciplinary course, so I am not presuming that everybody has undergone standard course of
undergraduate fluid mechanics. So we will start with some basic considerations that lead towards
the foundation of fluid mechanics, and then more specialized towards microfluidics, but before
that we will talk about by stretching our imagination that what marvelous we can do with
microfluidics.

So in the next lecture, we will be talking about some interesting research findings related to
microfluidics, mostly from my own research group, but also from the research activities of others
as reported in the research literature worldwide. This is just give you a feel that if you learn the
basics of microfluidics, what are the cutting edge problems that you might be in a position to
solve. Anyway, let us stop here today, thank you very much.