Research on a Peristaltic Micropump with Normally Closed Valves Driven By Vacuum Pressure

This research presents a vacuum driven peristaltic micropump with three normally closed valves which is controlled by the operational frequency on the electrical magnetic valve. The new peristaltic pump is constructed with three laser-defined structural layers made only of PDMS material and by MEMS (micro-electro-mechanical-systems) fabrication technology. The liquid is driven by the sequential deflection of membranes which are positioned between the gas layer and fluid layer. In order to test the performance of the micropump, the influence of various control and geometric parameters are explored. The experimental results show that the flow rate of micropump can be easily operated by controlled the driving signal frequency on the EMV and the applied vacuum pressure. The optimized operational condition and geometric parameters of the micropump are obtained by experiment.