Thermally actuated MEMS based silicon micropump

We report on the design of a MEMS based thermo pneumatic micro pump suitable for biomedical application. The micro pump consists of a silicon diaphragm with platinum micro heater, a microfluidic chamber and two cantilever valves at the inlet and outlet. The diaphragm is driven by applying voltages of range 1-6 V to the micro heater. When the diaphragm of the micro pump deflects, the fluid either fills or discharges the fluid chamber of the micro pump. The simulation result confirms the expected behavior of the micro pump. Three liquid namely ethanol, water and diethyl ether are loaded to the chamber to see the discharge characteristics of the micro pump. From the observation it can be seen that an applied power of 30 mW for water, 60 mW for ethanol and 130 mW for diethyl ether is needed to obtain a flow rate of 60μl/sec from the device.