ECF Micro Hydraulic Power Source by MEMS-Fabricated Pentagonal Prism Electrode Arrays

Electro-Conjugate Fluid (ECF) is a kind of functional and dielectric fluid. When a high DC voltage is applied to a pair of electrodes immersed in the ECF, a strong and active jet flow of ECF (ECF jet) is generated between these two electrodes. To satisfy high output power and easy fabrication at the same time, triangular prism and slit electrode (TPSE) pairs for a novel ECF micropump was proposed and developed by MEMS technology based on photolithography with thick photoresist and nickel electroplating. In order to get higher output power density, we propose a novel electrode shape that is called as pentagonal prism electrode array (PPEA) for generating very strong ECF jet with high volume density. Both TPSEs and PPEAs are successfully fabricated by the proposed MEMS technology and ECF micro hydraulic power sources (ECF micropumps) are realized by using them respectively. This paper experimentally investigates ECF jet characteristics of these two kinds of ECF micropumps and compares their performance. The experiment results show that the ECF micropump composed of PPEAs can generate almost same output pressure as that of TPSEs, which means output power density increases two times.