Valve-only pumping in mechanical gas micropumps

Abstract

This paper introduces a new class of compact, highly scalable and efficient membrane-based gas micropumps in which both stroke and flow-control actions are realized by checkerboard microvalves. Realized based on a novel scalable and modular microfabrication technology, the micropump reported here utilizes an unwanted secondary pumping effect, valve pumping, as the main pumping principle, eliminating the need for any pumping membrane. This reduces down the entire pumping structure to a collection of active microvalves, and hence, significantly simplifies the configuration and operation of mechanical gas micropumps and minimizes their dead volume (often the Achilles heel for gas micropumps). Valve-only pumping can produce a flow rate as high as 160 µL/min using only two valve membranes and pressure accumulations of 500 Pa, for a 4-stage device, while it also improves the total device size by 50%.

Deformation investigation of electromagnetic diaphragm pump rubber diaphragm

“…A diaphragm pump is a kind of volumetric pump that has promising sealing performance, and has been widely employed in petroleum, medicine industries, biological research and selective catalytic reduction (SCR) systems [1][2][3][4]. The past decade has seen rapid advances in the diaphragm pump [5][6][7][8]. As a significant type of the diaphragm pump, an electromagnetic diaphragm pump has simple structure, low power loss, and high cost performance.…”

Multistage Micropump System towards Vacuum Pressure

“…Pressure requirements for certain applications are very high and, thus, not achievable with only one micropump; therefore, the combination of several pumps in a series is a promising and straightforward solution. Cascades with electrostatically driven micropumps are shown from Besharatian et al with 2 to 24 stages with different configurations, where the minimal pressure of 24 stages is reported as ∼97 kPa absolute [27][28][29][30]. Kim et al report on 2, 4, and 18 stages with a maximum pressure difference of 17.5 kPa [14].…”