Electromagnetic actuation dual-chamber bidirectional flow micropump

Abstract

This paper presents the design and development of a dual-chamber microchannel chip, coupled with an electromagnetic actuator for a bidirectional flow micropump system. A rapid prototyping technique is reported for the fabrication of the membrane sheet (a spin coater machine technique), microchannel chip (a photolithography technique) and controller system (a wet etching method to the circuit board), decreased development time by allowing correction and evaluation of the micropump to be made early in the process. To achieve a bidirectional flow, a dispersing depth was implemented between the microchannel chamber and inlet/outlet channel. From the numerical simulation and experimental analysis obtained, the micropump was capable for bidirectional flow application with the maximum volumetric flow rate of the fabricated micropump system at zero backpressure is 1.1254 ± 0.0658 μLs−1 (forward direction) and 1.1266 ± 0.0760 μLs−1 (reversed direction). The power consumption for the developed micropump system is 48.64 mW.