Microfluidic devices and micro-pumps are increasingly necessitated in many fields ranging from untethered soft robots, to pharmaceutical and biomedical technology. While realization of such devices is limited by miniaturization constraints of conventional actuators, these restrictions can be resolved by using smart material transducers instead. This letter proposes and investigates the first ionic polymer metal composite (IPMC) actuator-driven linear peristaltic pump. With the aim of designing a monolithic device, our concept is based on a single IPMC actuator that is etched on both sides and cut with kirigami-inspired slits by laser ablation. Our pump has a planar configuration, operates with low activation voltages (<5V) and is simple to manufacture and thus miniaturize. We build proof-of-principle prototypes of an open and closed design of our proposed pump concept, model the closed design, and evaluate both configurations experimentally. Results show the feasibility of the proposed IPMC-driven pump. Without any optimization, the open pump achieved pumping rates of 669 pL $ \cdot $ s⁻¹, while the closed pump configuration attained a 4.57 Pa pressure buildup and 9.18 nL $ \cdot $ s⁻¹ pumping rate. These results indicate feasibility of the concept and future work will focus on design optimization.

中文翻译：

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离子聚合物金属复合材料 (IPMC) 驱动的线性蠕动微流体泵

从不受限制的软机器人到制药和生物医学技术，许多领域都越来越需要微流体装置和微型泵。虽然此类设备的实现受到传统执行器小型化的限制，但可以通过使用智能材料换能器来解决这些限制。这封信提出并研究了第一个离子聚合物金属复合材料 (IPMC) 致动器驱动的线性蠕动泵。为了设计单片器件，我们的概念基于单个 IPMC 致动器，该致动器在两侧蚀刻并通过激光烧蚀切割出灵感来自剪纸的狭缝。我们的泵采用平面配置，在低激活电压 (<5V) 下运行，制造简单，因此小型化。我们构建了我们提出的泵概念的开放式和封闭式设计的原理验证原型，对封闭式设计进行建模，并通过实验评估两种配置。结果表明所提出的 IPMC 驱动泵的可行性。在没有任何优化的情况下，开放式泵实现了 669 pL 的抽速$ \cdot $s ^-1，而封闭泵配置获得了 4.57 Pa 的压力累积和 9.18 nL$ \cdot $s ^-1抽速。这些结果表明该概念的可行性，未来的工作将集中在设计优化上。