Micro-Syringe Pump Prototype Driven by Stepper Motor forMicrofluidics

Abstract

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.