Liquid Micropumps

Fluidic control in the microscale channels is required in miniaturization of chemical, biochemical, and medical analysis systems. For this purpose, various types of micropumps for liquid flow control have been developed over the past 20 years. The micropumps developed so far are categorized into mechanical and nonmechanical micropumps. Features of mechanical micropumps strongly depend on the actuator used. Most commonly developed micropumps are of the diaphragm-type. Self-priming and bubble-tolerant micropumps that are required in actual uses have been developed by improving the diaphragm-type micropump. Many pumping mechanisms, such as electrohydrodynamic (EHD) behavior, magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) behavior, electroosmosis, chemical phenomena, etc., have been proposed for nonmechanical micropumps. The mechanism has to be chosen considering the applications.