AC Electrothermal Pumping for Medical Applications

While AC electroosmosis (AC-EO) micropumps have advantages of easy implementation and compatibility with microchip fabrication, it has been observed that the pumping rate is decreased for high conductive bio-fluids [1]. To expand our applications to biomedical area we propose here the AC electrothermal (ACET) effect, which can also improve the pumping rate by multiple fold compare to AC-EO. When utilized in biomedical applications, these micropumps can be used to administer small amounts of medication (e.g. insulin) at regular time intervals. ACET generates temperature gradients in the fluids, and consequently induces space charges that move in electric fields and produce microflows. To demonstrate the fluid manipulation in high conductive bio-fluids, we have developed an AC electrothermal micropump using asymmetrical electrode arrays.