Figure 3
Mixing and thermal performance of the DEA-based robotic mixer. (A) Schematic drawing of the experimental setup for the mixing test with the DEA-based robotic mixer: after placing a drop of food colorant at the bottom of the well plate and submerging it in water, the mixer was operated to produce a circular motion at a rotational speed of 100 rpm. (B) Comparison of the fitting curves of the temporal evolution of the relative brightness variation during mixing, as enabled by the DEA-based robotic mixer (4.1% Root Mean Square Error RMSE fitting), the commercial orbital shaker (15.3% RMSE fitting) and static mixing (2.3% RMSE fitting); the images next to the plots show the actual mixing in the three cases, at the beginning of the process and after eight minutes. See Supplementary Movie 1. Although for the commercial orbital shaker the video recording accidentally started a few seconds after pouring water into the mixing container (as shown by the different initial condition relative to the other two cases), we point out that the slight delay did not have any significant effect on the subsequent measurements. (C) Comparison of the temporal evolution of the temperature of water inside the well plate moved with a circular motion by the commercial orbital shaker and the DEA-based robotic mixer with its high-voltage driving electronics either inside or outside the test chamber; polynomial fitting curves were added as a guide for the eye.
