Inertial micropump technology for microfluidic apps

At a MEMS Industry Group seminar in Orlando, US, Alexander Govyadinov, lead technologist, Hewlett-Packard Printing & Technology Development Organization said microfluidics looks at the movement of small amounts of fluids through microchannels.

The current microfluidic applications include pharmaceutical and life science research, clinical and veterinary diagnostics, human point-of-care, analytical devices, environment and industrial testing, and inhalers, micropumps and microneedles.

The microfluidic segment has been growing at 20 percent CAGR. By 2016, the $4.7 billion market size refers to the over 1 billion microfluidic chips and substrates. The GM for synthetic biology reached $1 billion in 2012.

Every fluidic system needs a pump. Although external pumps are commonly used, there is lack of simple, cheap and easy-to-integrate mcro-pumps.

There is passive capillary pump operation using capillaty retention valve (CRV). In a capillary-driven microfluidic device the chip is composed of microfluidic functional elements. There are rotary pumps as well. Rotating gears can be hard to integrate and require strong external actuators. Mostly, external pumps are available. There are pneumatic/membrane micropumps as well as external piezo pumps and active pumps.

In a thermal inkjet (TIJ), the voltage pulse heats the resistor and boils the fluid. Once, the droplet has been ejected, the chamber is refilled by capillary forces. HP has an inertial pump for microfluidics. There exists a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) inertial pump model. An optimal resistor location is available. There are 2mmx512 pump-channel arrays.

Vison for future micropump applications include generic fluidic network with reversible pumps. Pumps' densities can be up to 1000 per inch2. There are concepts such as polymerase chain reactor and u-calorimeter total analysis system.

Microfluidics is a growing field. Inertial pump is a new way to move fluids through microchannels.