Electroosmotic pump based on asymmetric silicon microchannel membranes

This paper is devoted to the design and characterization of an electroosmotic pump based on asymmetric microchannel silicon membranes. A pronounced dependence of the pump flow rate on the structural asymmetry of microchannels was first found in experiments using deionized water. Pump flow rate was determined as a function of the applied voltage and the orientation of the matrix with respect to the volume of water pumped. An analytical description of the spatial structure of the microchannel matrices is proposed, which makes it possible to more accurately relate the structural and transport characteristics of the device. The data were used to calculate the zeta potential of the deionized water-silica-silicon system. It is assumed that the observed effect can be used as the basis for designing electroosmotic micropumps for modern bioanalytical micro- and nanofluidic systems. © 2014, Allerton Press, Inc.