Integrated Biocompatible Piezoelectric Micropump System with Nanoliter Volume Precision

Developments in microfluidics have led a wide variety of research on MEMS-scaled biomedical applications. Many biomedical sensors, drug delivery systems, cell and protein syntheses devices, microfluidic switches have been successfully miniaturized. However, there is a need for controlled fluid transport for most of these biomedical devices. To address this need, micropump design has been a highly attractive research area for decades and various micropump design templates have been used for controlled fluid transfer. However, most of these developed micropumps are either: not small enough to combine with other microfluidic systems or require a large activation energy which does not make them suitable for biomedical applications. This thesis presents a fully biocompatible micropump system consisting of a new actuator membrane structure fabricated from a piezoelectric polymer: polyvinylidene fluoride-trifluoroethylene (PVDF-TrFE). Its actuating performance was evaluated and compared with other common piezoelectric materials using finite element method (FEM) simulations. Full operation of actuator-membrane structures and diffuser elements which are the two components of the designed micropump were successfully proven separately and integration of these components was demonstrated.