Micro-Syringe Pump Prototype Driven by Stepper Motor for Microfluidics

Resumen

Portable and precise pumps are highly demanded for microfluidic applications. This project aimed to design and develop a micro-syringe pump, an advantage of this kind of device is that it can reach the minimum necessary control and precision to use it to drive fluids through a microfluidic device’s microchannel, seeking the required specifications and considering that the design has a single axis motion. All the micropump characteristics were designed to reach the technical parameters to get in various preliminary tests a precise performance using a microfluidic device. In this case, it was driving a fluid mixture of pectin and protein necessary to obtain a film-forming solution, useful in many applications in different industries, such as food to produce edible coatings or biodegradable films. The main elements used to develop the micro-syringe pump were a stepper motor with a satisfactory resolution meeting the design requirements, a control module, and pieces as a structure of the micro-syringe pump. Then they were printed using a 3D printer with Polylactic Acid (PLA) biopolymer and designed and assembled, reaching good results on preliminary tests conducted using a mono-channel microfluidic device.