Design and Calibration of a Microfluidic Syringe System for Nanofiber Electrospinning

Abstract

This research describes the design and calibration of a microfluidic syringe pump-based microcontroller systems. Micro-scale syringe pump systems are needed in the medical, sensor industries or research such as nano-fiber electrospinning [1]. The design of the syringe pump is modular and simple which facilitates the configuration of syringes and motors that are different so that they independent from each other between the syringe pump. The distance of each syringe pump can be adjusted from each other. The key issue here is how to make the syringe pump have flow with very high accuracy and precision. Each pump has a stepper motor that drives the lead screw, which in turn moves the sled (mounted on a linear ball bearing) which pushes (inserts) or pulls (sucks) the syringe. The gravimetric method is used to determine the volume and flow rate. The gravimetric method is the primary method used to determine flow and it consists of determining the mass delivered from the infusion pump in relation to time. The motor driver used to control the syringe pump uses a single Pololu A4988 stepper controller, which controls the stepper motor that drives the syringe pump. The microcontroller used in this system is Arduino nano. Communication between the microcontroller and PC uses serial communication with a baud rate of 9600. The calibration transfer function of a microfluidic syringe pump system is $\mathbf{y}=\mathbf{0.233x}+\mathbf{3.10e}-\mathbf{5}$ with R squared value is 1. The system flow-rate can be set up to 0.0043 mL/second or 15480 uL/hour with error 0,674%.