Seminar on viscoelastic flows in microfluidics

Mixing and transport at very small scales, such as in microfluidic devices used for medical diagnostics or chemical analysis, are notoriously difficult, because flows there tend to remain smooth and laminar. Elastic turbulence offers a surprising solution: by adding long polymer molecules, the elastic stresses they generate can turn a calm flow into a chaotic one, greatly enhancing mixing and particle transport. In my work, I study how particles move and spread in this regime, and how the turbulence itself can be characterised through its statistical and dynamical features. This not only advances our understanding of viscoelastic flows but also points to practical applications, from efficient mixing in lab-on-a-chip technologies to controlling the dispersion of particles, chemicals, or biomolecules in complex fluids.