Maximization of the capillary pump efficiency in microfluidics

Abstract

This paper studies the efficiency of capillary pump analytically in circular, square and rectangular channels with results verified by experiment. The effect of liquid momentum is analyzed with respect to channel size and equations are developed to enable most efficient fluid pumping. It is found that the momentum term is negligible at channel cross-cut area < 0.1 mm2 while it has a significant contribution at > 0.3 mm2 region. The optimized equations show that the most efficient pumping and thereby the quickest liquid filling is accomplished in square shaped channel when compared with rectangular and circular channels. Generally, the longer the filling distance, or the longer the filling time, the larger the channel size is required after optimization, and vice versa. For the rectangular channel with channel height fixed, the channel width requirement to maximize the ability of capillary pump is obtained and discussed. Experimental verifications are conducted based on the measurement of filling distance versus time, and the simulation results are well correlated with the testing results. The equations developed in the paper provide a reference for the microfluidic channel design, such that the channel filling speed can be maximized.