Disposable thermo-pneumatic micropump for bio lab-on-a-chip application

Abstract

We present a disposable thermo-pneumatic micropump with microscale check valves for easy incorporation in a fully integrated biochip. The microfluidic device is comprised of biocompatible materials: glass and polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). The chip consists of a glass substrate and three PDMS layers. In the chip, a Cr/Au heater is fabricated by micromachining on a glass substrate, while the flow channel, pump chamber, and valves are made by replica molding using layers of PDMS. The glass-based heater chip and the PDMS-based micropump chip are assembled and clamped together to enable operation of the system, and then the components are separable such that the heater chip can be used repeatedly and the PDMS chip can be used in a disposable manner. The operation of the micropump was investigated experimentally, as well as through simulations using fluid dynamics software. Superior pumping performance was achieved when the duty ratio of the voltage applied to the heater was 33%. © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.