A review on micropumps from the viewpoint of volumetric power density

Abstract

Micropump is one of critical devices in composing high-performance micro-fluid systems like micro hydraulics, fluid-driven micro machines, micro liquid forced cooling of electrical components, µTAS(Micro total analysis systems), LOC(Lab-on a-chip), micro dosing system and so on. A lot of principles are proposed to develop micropumps in these 30 years. At the same time, many review papers on many kinds of micropumps were published in these 20 years, however, in these 8 years there are little review papers on micropumps, particularly from the point of power density view. Here, first, we survey some recent review articles on the progress of micropumps over the past 25 years. Secondly, we attempt to provide the review on latest trend on micropump researches in these 8 years. Finally, we introduce some powerful micropumps as a power source of micro hydraulics. From the point of view that the micropump can be power source as a micro hydraulics, the state of the art micropumps and their power densities are discussed. Much progress has been made, however, with micropumps suitable for primary applications still not available, it seems that this remains a developing and productive area for future research.