The ability to control the rotational direction of tethered motile bacteria such as Escherichia coli offers an alternative to power micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) devices. This paper describes our effort in the development of a micro-fluidic system for small but precise liquid delivery that uses the motility of tethered cellular motors as the driving force for fluidic transport. Based on CFD simulation, micro channels of various cross-sectional areas are fabricated on a 5″ × 5″ × 0.9″ quartz wafer. Integration of the cellular motors is done by bonding the micro channel wafer to a glass slide, which consists of a single layer of cellular motors previously tethered on the slide. With this system, rotation of the cellular motors will be initiated and the resulting volumetric fluid flow in the micro channel will be measured.
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