A Pneumatic Micro Peristaltic Pump With Slanted Membranes

We designed and fabricated a bi-directional micro pneumatic peristaltic pump driven by slanted membranes. Unlike most micro peristaltic pumps with discrete polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) flat membranes, ours has two opposite slanted PDMS membranes tandem along the fluid channel. Since the thickness of the slanted membrane is not uniform, it will produce continuous and asymmetric deflections under increasing pneumatic pressure. The pumping action is achieved by using one membrane as the driving membrane and the other as a stop valve. The flow direction can be controlled by changing phase difference of two driving square waves. Experimental results show that our peristaltic pump achieves much higher maximum flow rate than that of a micro peristaltic pump with three flat membranes of similar size.