Micro-Syringe Pump Prototype Driven by Stepper Motor for Microfluidics

Resumen

Portable and precise pumps are highly demanded 
for microfluidic applications. This project aimed to design and 
develop a micro-syringe pump, an advantage of this kind of 
device is that it can reach the minimum necessary control and 
precision to use it to drive fluids through a microfluidic device’s 
microchannel, seeking the required specifications and 
considering that the design has a single axis motion. All the 
micropump characteristics were designed to reach the technical 
parameters to get in various preliminary tests a precise 
performance using a microfluidic device. In this case, it was 
driving a fluid mixture of pectin and protein necessary to obtain 
a film-forming solution, useful in many applications in different 
industries, such as food to produce edible coatings or 
biodegradable films. The main elements used to develop the 
micro-syringe pump were a stepper motor with a satisfactory 
resolution meeting the design requirements, a control module, 
and pieces as a structure of the micro-syringe pump. Then they 
were printed using a 3D printer with Polylactic Acid (PLA) 
biopolymer and designed and assembled, reaching good results 
on preliminary tests conducted using a mono-channel 
microfluidic device.