Design and fabrication of a screw-driven multi-channel peristaltic pump for portable microfluidic devices

A novel peristaltic pump for portable microfluidic devices has been recently designed and fabricated. The operation principle is based on the peristaltic motion of eight elastic pumping channels that are occluded by a screw shaft. The screw shaft rotating inside the pumping channel unit has a spirally arranged projection which deforms and closes down the channels as a normally closed valve. While the shaft rotates, the pinched locations in the channels move either way according to the direction of rotation, squeezing out the fluid inside. It features unlimited and quantitative fluid feeding with a wide range of flow rates for one channel from 3.5 mu L min(-1) at 3 rpm to 280.2 mu L min(-1) at 180 rpm. It was demonstrated that pulsation can be drastically reduced by merging two anti-phase channels.