Fabrication of Microfluidic Pump Using Conducting Polymer Actuator

Author

Kim, Jung Ho ; Lau, King Tong ; Diamond, Dermot

Author_Institution

Nat. Center for Sensor Res., Dublin City Univ., Dublin

fYear

2008

fDate

11-13 June 2008

Firstpage

457

Lastpage

463

Abstract

In this paper, we present a low-power microfluidic pump based on polypyrrole- actuator. This polymeric microfluidic pump is fabricated with polypyrrole modified poly dimethylsiloxane (PDMS) membrane encased into a polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) structure. The pumping action is induced by electro-chemically actuating the PPy- PDMS membrane while check valves at the inlet and outlet control the flow direction in the respective pump phases. This pump is self-priming. Accurate control of the output flow rate can be obtained by changing the actuation frequency. With this pump, a maximum pumping rate of 52 muL/min was achieved using an input power of 55 mW operated at plusmn1.5 volt.

Keywords

actuators; conducting polymers; electrochemical devices; flow control; microfluidics; micropumps; conducting polymer actuator; electro-chemical actuation; low-power polymeric microfluidic pump fabrication; output flow rate control; polymethylmethacrylate structure; polypyrrole modified poly dimethylsiloxane membrane; power 55 mW; pumping rate; self-priming micropump; Actuators; Biomembranes; Fabrication; Fluid flow control; Force sensors; Microfluidics; Micropumps; Polymers; Pumps; Valves;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Sensor Networks, Ubiquitous and Trustworthy Computing, 2008. SUTC '08. IEEE International Conference on

Conference_Location

Taichung

Print_ISBN

978-0-7695-3158-8

Electronic_ISBN

978-0-7695-3158-8

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/SUTC.2008.74

Filename

4545802