Compliance-Based Latchable Microfluidic Actuators Using a Paraffin Wax

This paper presents a novel phase-change actuator that can be potentially used for microvalves in lab-on-a-chip systems where minimal energy consumption is required. The actuator exploits a low melting-point paraffin wax, whose solid-liquid phase changes allow the closing and opening of fluid flow t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in19th IEEE International Conference on Micro Electro Mechanical Systems pp. 738 - 741
Main Authors Bozhi Yang, Qiao Lin
Format Conference Proceeding
LanguageEnglish
Published IEEE 2006
Subjects
Actuators
Energy consumption
Fluid flow
Lab-on-a-chip
Microchannel
Microfluidics
Microvalves
Nonhomogeneous media
Soft lithography
Switches
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Summary:This paper presents a novel phase-change actuator that can be potentially used for microvalves in lab-on-a-chip systems where minimal energy consumption is required. The actuator exploits a low melting-point paraffin wax, whose solid-liquid phase changes allow the closing and opening of fluid flow through deformable microchannels. Flow switching is initiated by melting of paraffin using integrated heaters, with an additional pneumatic pressure used for flow switching from open to closed state. After paraffin solidifies the switched flow state is subsequently maintained without further energy consumption. The actuator can be fabricated from PDMS through the multilayer soft lithography technique. Experiments demonstrate that the actuators can switch the flow state within 4-8 seconds, which can be further sped up with improved heater designs.
ISBN:0780394755
9780780394759
ISSN:1084-6999
DOI:10.1109/MEMSYS.2006.1627905