Design and Analysis of Impedance Pumps Utilizing Electromagnetic Actuation

This study designs and analyzes an impedance pump utilizing an electromagnetic actuator. The pump is designed to have three major components, namely a lower glass substrate patterned with a copper micro-coil, a microchannel, and an upper glass cover plate attached a magnetic PDMS diaphragm. When a current is passed through the micro-coil, an electromagnetic force is established between the coil and the magnetic diaphragm. The resulting deflection of the PDMS diaphragm creates an acoustic impedance mismatch within the microchannel, which results in a net flow. In performing the analysis, simulated models of the magnetic field, the diaphragm displacement and the flow rate are developed using Ansoft/Maxwell3D, ANSYS FEA and FLUENT 6.3 CFD software, respectively. Overall, the simulated results reveal that a net flow rate of 52.8 μL/min can be obtained using a diaphragm displacement of 31.5 μm induced by a micro-coil input current of 0.5 A. The impedance pump proposed in this study provides a valuable contribution to the ongoing development of Lab-on-Chips (LoCs) systems.