Peristaltic Pump with Continuous Flow and Programmable Flow Pulsation

In future, sensors with flexible electronics will be deployed more often in biomedical applications for the acquisition of biological signals in the human body. To ensure biocompatibility, these sensors are often encapsulated by polymers. For research and testing of new encapsulation materials and their biocompatibility evaluation, new test procedures will be necessary, which reflect the flow conditions of the physiological environment. This paper presents a new peristaltic pump which stimulates the tube by a circulating eccentric oscillation. The pump characteristics differ significantly from conventional roller pumps and combine continuous flow and programmable flow pulsation. In continuous mode the non-occlusive pump can reduce the flow pulsation by about 85% in comparison to a conventional roller pump. Programmable flow pulsation is achieved by controlling the oscillation amplitude. This control characteristic enables the generation of defined volume flow pulses. Pulse shapes of a second generation vessel in the human arterial network can be generated in experimentally, for instance. These pulse shapes are required for in vitro investigations of biocompatible encapsulations under physiological flow conditions.

I. Introduction

For biomedical applications, sensors with flexible electronics will be required more frequently to detect biological signals in the human body [1]. Currently, these sensors are often encapsulated by polymers. This encapsulation ensures the biocompatibility of the sensor unit and prevents negative reactions between the human organism and the implanted unit. However, the polymers currently used for encapsulation are not capable of hermetically sealing the unit from the organism due to residual ion permeability [2]. New test procedures will be needed in the search for new encapsulation materials and their biocompatibility evaluation. These test procedures will need to reflect the flow conditions of the physiological surroundings as accurately as possible.