Design analysis and fabrication of a piezoelectric valveless diffuser micropump for microfluidics

Abstract

Previous experiments have shown that the inlet choking phenomenon was the major reason to make the one-side actuating micropump valve-free, with a flow rate of 0.088 mL/s and a pump head of 45.6 Pa. This research proposes a piezoelectric (PZT) valveless micropump which adopts an integrated diffuser bulge-piece design. The pump mainly consists of a stainless-steel structured chamber with the dimensions of 8 mm in diameter and 70 μm. By adding the stainless-steel structured chamber, the performance can be improved to 1.2 mL/s and 5.3 kPa with the driving voltage of 160 V and frequency ranging from 100 to 550 Hz. Its unique features enable it to perform more accurately and reliably in the fields of biochemical engineering and electronics cooling.