Electrical power free, low dead volume, pressure-driven pumping for microfluidic applications

This paper presents a simple-to-construct, low dead volume pump capable of generating a wide range of positive and negative pressures for microfluidic applications. The pump generates pressure or vacuum by changing the volume of air confined inside a syringe and is able to generate pressures between -95 and +300 kPa with a resolution as high as 1 Pa. Different from syringe pumps and electrokinetic pumping, which are capable of controlling flow rates only, our pump can be used to generate constant flow rates or constant pressures, which are required for certain applications such as the aspiration of biological cells for biophysical characterization. Compared to syringe pumps, the new pump has almost zero dead volume and does not exhibit pulsatile flows. Additionally, the system does not require electrical power and is cost effective (∼$100). To demonstrate the capabilities of the pump, we used it to aspirate osteoblasts (MC3T3-E1 cells) and to determine Young's modulus of the cells, to generate a concentration gradient, and to produce variable-sized droplets in microchannels using hydrodynamic focusing.