Micropump - Bartels Mikrotechnik - #1

Micropumps transporting the tiniest amounts of gases or liquids can be considered the heart of microfluidics.

In many sectors they have become indispensable. Dosing lubricants, feeding fuel cells with methanol or mixing starch into the steam of flat irons are only a few of the manifold tasks they can fulfill. Many further fields of application for example are located in medical technologies and analytics.

Extremely small in size and low in weight, with high particle tolerance and temperature resistance, Bartels micropumps are well prepared to be used in any of these sectors. As they are almost completely made of plastics, large quantities of these pumps can be produced at low cost and may well be used as disposables.

The functional principle of the Bartels micropumps is based on a piezoelectric diaphragm in combination with passive check valves. A piezo ceramic mounted on a coated brass membrane is deformed when a voltage is applied. By the resulting downstroke, the medium is being displaced out of the pump chamber below. The check valves on both sides of the pump chamber define the flow direction. When the voltage decreases, the piezo's correspondent deformation causes an upstroke of the membrane. The medium is sucked in and the chamber is filled again. In every second, the pump can do several hundreds of such pumping cycles. The pumping performance can be influenced by adjustment of the parameters amplitude, frequency and wave form of the electric signal.

Important advantages for all users result from the radically simple pump design: Injection molded parts for housing and pump chamber, piezo actuators and passive valves constitute the key components. Thus any adaptation to specific requirements concerning flow rate or back pressure is easy to realize. This customization of micropumps and the correspondent electronic controllers is part of the services offered by Bartels microComponents. If requested, the pumps can be fully integrated into complex system designs as well.

Once the perfect pump for your application has been found, you may purchase an exclusive production license for this version to include the component into your own production processes. Of course Bartels microComponents can also realize a high quality serial production for you at low cost.

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Functional principle of the micropumps