A flexible valve based piezoelectric pump for high viscosity liquid transportation

Abstract A piezoelectric pump with flexible valve has been developed to pump high viscosity liquid in various biomedical environments. The structure of the flexible valve is designed according to the characteristics of the human aortic shape which aims to simulate the bionic pumping function of the human heart. Dynamic stress-strain features of the flexible valve is analysed by the finite element method , and the results show that the proposed flexible valve is suitable and functional for the piezoelectric pump design. Then the cylinder and diffuser/nozzle piezoelectric pumps based on flexible valves have been developed and fabricated. The output performance experiments indicate that the maximum flow rate of the cylinder piezoelectric pump with flexible valve is 15.38 mL/min, which is 170.77% higher than the diffuser/nozzle piezoelectric pump with flexible valve. The outstanding ability of the cylinder piezoelectric pump with flexible valve for transmitting high viscosity liquid has been validated. Such advantages of the proposed piezoelectric pump with flexible valve made it featuring the potential application ability in living cells delivery, biomedical analysis system and fine chemical industry.