Development of Piezoelectric Gas Micro Pumps with the PDMS Check Valve Design

This paper presents the design and fabrication of a� novel piezoelectric actuator for a gas micro pump with check valve� having the advantages of miniature size, light weight and low power� consumption. The micro pump is designed to have eight major� components, namely a stainless steel upper cover layer, a� piezoelectric actuator, a stainless steel diaphragm, a PDMS chamber� layer, two stainless steel channel layers with two valve seats, a PDMS� check valve layer with two cantilever-type check valves and an acrylic� substrate. A prototype of the gas micro pump, with a size of 52 mm ×� 50 mm × 5.0 mm, is fabricated by precise manufacturing. This device� is designed to pump gases with the capability of performing the� self-priming and bubble-tolerant work mode by maximizing the stroke� volume of the membrane as well as the compression ratio via� minimization of the dead volume of the micro pump chamber and� channel. By experiment apparatus setup, we can get the real-time� values of the flow rate of micro pump and the displacement of the� piezoelectric actuator, simultaneously. The gas micro pump obtained� higher output performance under the sinusoidal waveform of 250 Vpp.� The micro pump achieved the maximum pumping rates of 1185� ml/min and back pressure of 7.14 kPa at the corresponding frequency� of 120 and 50 Hz.