The Development Of A Polymer Based Piezo-Actuated Micropump

Abstract

This paper presents the design, realization and simulation of a novel polymer based check-valve micropump actuated by piezoelectric disc. Comparing with silicon substrate, polymer materials have such advantages as flexibility, chemical and biological compatibility, 3D fabrication possibility and low cost in material and mass production. Laser micromachining technology and precision engineering techniques were used to fabricate the prototype with the dimension of Φ20mm×5.2mm. Result of preliminary experiments on fusion bonding between polyimide and polycarbonate are also presented. Due to the small difference between their glass transition temperatures (Tg) the polyimide and polycarbonate could be bonded together relatively easily. A special fixture for the bonding process has been designed and made to control the lateral and vertical expansion less than 1.5%. Using DI water as the pumping medium, the presented micropump is expected to achieve self-priming, bubble tolerance and low power consumption and a flow rate of 30μl/min at the resonance frequency of 300Hz. A planar format micropump will be delivered based on this presented successful design for mass fabrication.