Design and Simulation of an Optimized Electroosmotic Micropump Based on MEMS Technology

In this paper, design and simulation of an electroosmotic micropump for use in biomedical applications and drug delivery devices is reported. This electroosmotic micropump is based on MEMS technology and is fully compatible with the processes of manufacturing of electromechanical systems. The basis of the proposed micropump structure is based on the electroosmotic phenomenon and the main idea used in the proposed structure is to use the technique of increasing fluid and wall contact within the main channel of the micropump. To this end, the use of internal microchannels along the main channel path has been used; these embedded microchannels, by increasing the contact surface between the fluid and the wall, enhance the electroosmotic effect inside the micropump, resulting in an increase in fluid velocity and the output flow rate. Simulation results show that the minimum speed of a simple micropump with a length of 600 μm and a width of 300 μm and applied potential of 10 volts without internal microchannels is equal to 0.22 mm/min. In the proposed structure, with the addition of 8 internal microchannels with a length of 90 μm and a width of 20 μm inside the main channel of the micropump, the flow rate of the fluid reaches 7.8 mm per minute. According to the simulation results it can be seen that, by adding the proposed microchannels to the electroosmotic micropump structure, the fluid outlet speed compared to the non-microchannel mode increases dramatically by up to 35 times at the same potential.