Micropumps - From the Lab to the Fab

An overview on the industrialisation efforts in the field of micropumps is given in this paper. 20 years after the first presentation of a MEMS micropump, an overwhelming multitude of micro pump principles have been reported on. But only in the last five years, micropumps have made the step from laboratory prototypes to market-available products. Companies such as ThinXXs, Star Micronics, Debiotech and Bartels Mikrotechnik are paving this way. However, the step from a working prototype to an industrially manufactured product proves to be more challenging than widely expected. Industrial demand of small yet precise pumps is substantial, especially in the field of laboratory dosing. Newly emerging application fields such as micro fuel cell systems give further uprise to bring this technology into commercial applications.