We present a thermoforming method to make in-line micromixer in commercial fluoropolymer tubing. The technique is low-cost and easy to implement in the laboratory. Tested by dye tracing experiments, the tubular micromixers with surface screw patterns demonstrate excellent performance as characterized by the Villermaux–Dushman reaction and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations. Results show that the formed static mixer performs better than coiled and straight tubes for the low Reynolds number (Re < 100) regime encountered in many laboratory flow chemistry experiments. The observations correlate well with residence time distribution (RTD) experiments revealing reduced dispersion. The improved performance of the screw-tube mixers is attributed to the forced rotating flow around the central axis. The new static mixer structures are employed in the synthesis of gold nanoparticles with high yield and narrower size distribution particles compared to results with coiled tubes.

中文翻译：

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用于在线混合的热成型含氟聚合物管†

我们提出一种热成型方法，以在商用含氟聚合物管材中制造在线微型混合器。该技术成本低廉，易于在实验室中实施。通过染料示踪实验进行测试，具有表面螺杆模式的管状微混合器表现出出色的性能，其特点是通过Villermaux-Dushman反应和计算流体动力学（CFD）模拟进行了表征。结果表明，对于许多实验室流化学实验中遇到的低雷诺数（Re <100），形成的静态混合器的性能优于盘管和直管。观察结果与停留时间分布（RTD）实验相关性很好，揭示了分散性降低。螺旋管式混合器性能的提高归因于绕中心轴的强制旋转流。