An air-bubble-actuated micropump for on-chip blood transportation

A novel electrolysis-based micropump using air bubble to achieve indirect actuation is proposed and demonstrated. Compared with other electrochemical micropumps, our micropump could drive microfluid without inducing either the pH-value variation in the main channel or the choking/sticking phenomena of electrolytic bubbles. It is promising for biomedical applications, especially for application like blood transportation. Polyethylene glycol (PEG) is employed to modify the surface of PDMS microchannel to prevent the platelet adhesion during blood-pumping operation. With the applied voltage of 2.5 volts, the maximum pumping rate for DI water and whole blood were 121 nl/min and 88 nl/min, respectively.