Preliminary Study on Planar Electromagnetic Microfluidics Based a Microsensor by Finite Element Analysis

To improve the performance of conventional magnetohydrodynamics (MHDs) micropump used in microfluidic sensing systems, this paper presents a novel MHD flow model with planar electromagnets, demonstrates the basic theoretical analysis of an ac MHD micropump and compares it with other MHD flow models by finite element analysis. Since little attention has been devoted to the application of planar electromagnet in MHD micropump, preliminary study was proposed in this paper. Based on the numerical models developed, flow velocity, magnetic flux density distribution in different channel sizes, and comparison of different coil materials and magnetic yoke materials used in the MHD micropump were investigated by the proposed 3-D models. Microchannel with aspect ratio of 1:1 was used in our simulation as the flow velocity decreased with the aspect ratio decreased. Flow velocity of 0.94 ml/min was observed with the proposed new designed MHD micropump, which provides an alternative to traditional MHD micropump with complex 3-D electromagnet construction, especially potential applications in drug delivery system, chemical analysis, and biological detection areas when integrating with sensing elements.