Natural convection pump having local nonequilibrium states with heaters for microfluidic circuits

A small pump with a simple structure that can be driven at low voltage remains under development in the research stage. In this study, we propose a small natural convection pump that has local nonequilibrium states with heaters for microfluidic circuits, and experimentally examine its pumping performance. In other words, by setting four small units comprising a hot fluid region with a buoyancy force and a cold fluid region in a circular channel, we obtained a maximum pumping velocity of similar to 0.6 mm s(-1) with an applied voltage of 3 V. Our device is beneficial as microfluidic circuits because the performance of our device is sufficiently practical.