Portable valve-less peristaltic micropump design and fabrication

This paper is to describe a design and fabrication method for a valve-less peristaltic micro-pump. The valve-less peristaltic micro-pump with three membrane chambers in a serial is actuated by three piezoelectric (PZT) actuators. With the fluidic flow design, liquid in the flow channel is pumped to a constant flow speed ranged from 0.4 to 0.48 mm/s. In term of the maximum flow rate of the micro-pump is about 365 mul/min, when the applied voltage is 24 V and frequency 50 Hz. Photolithography process was used to fabricate the micro-pump mold. PDMS molding and PDMS bonding method were used to fabricate the micro-channel and actuator chambers. A portable drive controller was designed to control three PZT actuators in a proper sequence to drive the chamber membrane. Then, all parts were integrated into the portable valve-less peristaltic micro-pump system.