Piezoelectric Silicon Micropump for Drug Delivery Applications

Applied Sciences

Martin Wackerle¹  Henry Leistner¹  Martin Richter¹  Yücel Congar¹  Agnes Bußmann¹  Doris Zhou¹  Jürgen Hubbuch² 

[1] Fraunhofer EMFT Research Institution for Microsystems and Solid State Technologies, 80686 Munich, Germany;Institute of Engineering in Life Sciences, Section IV: Biomolecular Separation Engineering, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), 76131 Karlsruhe, Germany;

关键词: micropump;    piezoelectric diaphragm pump;    drug delivery;    microdosing;    patch pump;    insulin delivery;   

DOI  :  10.3390/app11178008

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Subcutaneous injection is crucial for the treatment of many diseases. Especially for regular or continuous injections, automated dosing is beneficial. However, existing devices are large, uncomfortable, visible under clothing, or interfere with physical activity. Thus, the development of small, energy efficient and reliable patch pumps or implantable systems is necessary and research on microelectromechanical system (MEMS) based drug delivery devices has gained increasing interest. However, the requirements of medical applications are challenging and especially the dosing precision and reliability of MEMS pumps are not yet sufficiently evaluated. To enable further miniaturization, we propose a precise 5 × 5 mm² silicon micropump. Detailed experimental evaluation of ten pumps proves a backpressure capability with air of 12.5 ± 0.8 kPa, which indicates the ability to transport bubbles. The maximal water flow rate is 74 ± 6 µL/min and the pumps’ average blocking pressure is 51 kPa. The evaluation of the dosing precision for bolus deliveries with water and insulin shows a high repeatability of dosed package volumes. The pumps show a mean standard deviation of only 0.02 mg for 0.5 mg packages, and therefore, stay below the generally accepted 5% deviation, even for this extremely small amount. The high precision enables the combination with higher concentrated medication and is the foundation for the development of an extremely miniaturized patch pump.

【 授权许可】

Unknown