A novel thermo-pneumatic peristaltic micropump with low temperature elevation

In this work, the development of a novel thermo-pneumatic peristaltic micropump, which consists of two separate zones for air-heating and fluid-squeezing, is presented. The device is realized by using micromachining techniques, and operated with simple actuation sequences. With a 5 V applied voltage and 40% heating duty ratio, maximum temperature elevation measured on the pumping diaphragm above the fluid-squeezing zone is 2.9 K, while a maximum value of 68.8 K is measured above the air-heating zone. Since significant reduction of temperature elevation on the working fluid is achieved, the device is suitable for the applications such as DNA chips or protein chips. Furthermore, applying higher voltage generates larger flow rate accompanied with relatively small increase of temperature elevation.