Characteristic studies of the piezoelectrically actuated micropump with check valve

This study presents the design and fabrication of a novel piezoelectric actuator for a micropump with check valve having the advantages of miniature size, light weight and low power consumption. The micropump is designed to have five major components, namely a piezoelectric actuator, a stainless steel chamber layer with membrane, two stainless steel channel layers with two valve seats, and a nickel check valve layer with two bridge-type check valves. A prototype of the micropump, with a size of 10 x 10 x 1.0 mm, is fabricated by precise manufacturing. The check valve layer was fabricated by nickel electroforming process on a stainless steel substrate. The chamber and the channel layer were made of the stainless steel manufactured using the lithography and etching process based on MEMS fabrication technology. The experimental results demonstrate that the flow rate of micropump accurately controlled by regulating the operating frequency and voltage. The flow rate of 1.82 ml/min and back pressure of 32 kPa are obtained when the micropump is driven with alternating sine-wave voltage of 120 Vpp at 160 Hz. The micropump proposed in this study provides a valuable contribution to the ongoing development of microfluidic systems.