Piezoelectric peristaltic micropump integrated on a microfluidic chip

[Display omitted] •A novel peristaltic micropump integrated on a microfludic chip was developed.•The microfluidic chip was disposable and separated from the piezoelectric actuators.•High frequency (larger than 100Hz) and fast response.•Tiny dead volume (less than 300nL). Micropump is extremely useful in miniature biochemical analysis systems for its abilities of manipulating and transporting minute liquid. We developed a novel peristaltic micropump to pump fluids in microfluidic chip in this article. The micropump consists of three piezoelectric actuators, and part of a microfluidic chip as a compressible microchannel. The fluid in the microchannel is transported owning to a series of impacting actions on the microchannel by the piezoelectric actuators. The microchannel is integrated fabricated with the microfluidic chip, which ensures a tiny dead volume less than 300 nL. Being beneficial from the plug-and-play design of the microfluidic chip, there is no cross-contamination for the reagent has no contact with the reusable actuators. Calibration shows the micropump can transport liquid at a high resolution of 8.4 nL/s, a maximum flow rate of 102 nL/s, and backpressure of up to 2.0 K Pa. A demonstration of mixing liquids on a chip was carried out using two micropumps, indicating its great potential for manipulating microamount reagent in biochemical application.