Microfluidic Pumping Based on Traveling-Wave Dielectrophoresis

Abstract

This article presents a microfluidic pumping approach using traveling-wave dielectrophoresis (twDEP) of microparticles. With this approach, the flow is generated directly in the microfluidic devices by inducing strong electromechanical effects in the fluid using integrated microelectrodes. The fluidic driving mechanisms due to the particle–fluid and particle–particle interactions under twDEP are analyzed, and the induced flow field is obtained from numerical simulations. Experimental measurements of the flow velocity in a prototype DEP micropumping device show satisfactory agreement with the numerical predications. Results from this work indicate that the DEP-induced micropumping scheme holds great promise for devising versatile, self-contained microscale fluidic delivery systems.

KEY WORDS:

• dielectrophoresis
• traveling-wave field
• particle–fluid interaction
• micropumping
• microfluidics

The authors acknowledge assistance from Vaibhav Bahadur and Brian Iverson of Purdue University with different aspects of this work.

An earlier version of this work was presented at the Intersociety Conference on Thermal and Thermomechanical Phenomena in Electronic Systems (ITHERM), Orlando, FL, 2008.

Notes

FLUENT 6 User's Guide, Lebanon, NH, Fluent Inc., 2000.