Cooperative Suction by Vertical Capillary Array Pump for Controlling Flow Profiles of Microfluidic Sensor Chips

Sensors

Tsutomu Horiuchi¹  Katsuyoshi Hayashi¹  Michiko Seyama²  Suzuyo Inoue² 

[1] NTT Microsystem Integration Laboratories, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT), Morinosato-Wakamiya, Atsugi-shi, Kanagawa 2430198, Japan;

关键词: microfluidics;    capillary;    flow rate;    passive pump;   

DOI  :  10.3390/s121014053

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

A passive pump consisting of integrated vertical capillaries has been developed for a microfluidic chip as an useful component with an excellent flow volume and flow rate. A fluidic chip built into a passive pump was used by connecting the bottoms of all the capillaries to a top surface consisting of a thin layer channel in the microfluidic chip where the thin layer channel depth was smaller than the capillary radius. As a result the vertical capillaries drew fluid cooperatively rather than independently, thus exerting the maximum suction efficiency at every instance. This meant that a flow rate was realized that exhibited little variation and without any external power or operation. A microfluidic chip built into this passive pump had the ability to achieve a quasi-steady rather than a rapidly decreasing flow rate, which is a universal flow characteristic in an ordinary capillary.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2012 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.