A high pressure-resistance micropump using active and normally-closed valves

A novel micropump that has two active and normally-closed valves was developed using micromachine technology. This micropump can pump in forward and backward direction, and hold the fluid without consuming energy even when the fluid source has some pressure. This normally-closed valve is manufactured in the way of filling up silicone rubber paste after bonding glass substrate and silicon substrate. This silicone rubber works as a “gate” for shutting off the flow. Therefore, high pressure-resistance micropump is realized with no influence of fabrication error. In this paper, basic characteristics of this micropump about flow rate, outlet pressure and pressure-resistance are described