CL-170217 Received: March 6, 2017 | Accepted: March 31, 2017 | Web Released: April 8, 2017

Electrohydrodynamic Conduction Pump with Asymmetrical Electrode Structures

in the Microchannels
Tasuku Sato,*1 Yoko Yamanishi,2 Vito Cacucciolo,3 Yu Kuwajima,1 Hiroki Shigemune,1,4
Matteo Cianchetti,3 Cecilia Laschi,3 and Shingo Maeda1
1
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Shibaura Institute of Technology, 3-7-5 Toyosu, Koto-ku, Tokyo 135-8548
2
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Kyushu University, 744 Motooka, Nishi-ku, Fukuoka 819-0395
3
BioRobotics Institute, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Polo Sant’Anna Valdera, Viale Rinaldo Piaggio 34 56025 Pontedera (Pisa) Italy
4
Department of Modern Mechanical Engineering, Graduate School of Creative Science and Engineering, Waseda University,
3-4-1 Okubo, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 169-8555

(E-mail: md16036@shibaura-it.ac.jp)

In this study, we have developed a microfluidic pump that
utilizes the electrohydrodynamic (EHD) conduction of a working
fluid. Ring-shaped pumps have been used in previous studies on
EHD conduction, but these require a three-dimensional arrange-
ment of electrode pairs, which makes it difficult to downsize the
apparatus. Here, we propose a mechanism to achieve one-way
fluid flow in the microchannels by arranging non-parallel electro-
des in a plane to generate an asymmetric electric field. One
advantage of this design is that it can be easily and precisely
fabricated using microelectromechanical system (MEMS) process-
ing techniques: this has allowed us to integrate a micropump and
a microchannel into a single device. Moreover, the pressure
generated by the pump is induced solely by electrochemical
reactions; since mechanical components such as gears are not
required, this helps reduce the noise generated by the device.
Keywords: Electrohydrodynamic conduction | Microchannel |
Non-parallel electrode
The demand for small actuators is increasing due to the
development of highly integrated electronics and the miniaturiza-
tion of devices.1,2 The use of electrohydrodynamics (EHD), where
a voltage is applied to induce the flow of a working fluid, may help
reduce the size of actuators.3 In EHD, three forces are known to
act directly on a fluid (unlike in electrophoresis where the forces
act on dispersed particles in a fluid). These forces can be described
by eq 1.4
   
1 1 2 @¾
F ¼ µe E  E2 r¾ þ E µ ð1Þ
2 2 @µ T
Here, F is the electric body force, µe is the charge density, E is the
electric field magnitude, E is the electric field, ¾ is the permittivity,
and µ is the mass density. The first term in the equation represents
the Coulomb force acting on free charges in an electric field. The
second and third terms represent the dielectrophoretic and electro-
striction forces, respectively, which are polarization forces acting
on polarized charges. The dielectrophoretic force acts on a
permittivity gradient and does not exist for isothermal single-
phase flow, and the electrostriction force is only applicable to
compressible fluids.
EHD phenomena can be divided into EHD conduction and
EHD injection. It is known that EHD conduction occurs at less
than 107 V m¹1.4 EHD injection can produce large pressures,
but can also lead to deterioration of the electrodes. Electrode
deterioration is not a major issue for EHD conduction, and
therefore this has attracted more research interest. Pearson and
Seyed-Yagoobi have described the mechanism of EHD conduction
as follows.5 When a high-voltage electric field is applied to a fluid,
an equilibrium is achieved between the dissociation of some of the
neutral species, AB, into ions (A+ and B¹), and recombination of
the ions back into AB.
AB  Aþ þ B ð2Þ
When the voltage is increased above a certain threshold value, the
rate of dissociation becomes faster than the rate of recombination,
and the ions A+ and B¹ are attracted to the electrodes. As a result,
the ions collide with the neutral AB species, and the fluid flows
towards the electrodes.
When EHD conduction is used for pumping, it is important
to generate unidirectional flow by breaking the symmetry of the
structure or the electric field.6,7 In recent studies, researchers have
used ring-shaped structures or mesh electrodes to develop EHD
conduction pumping devices, in which the working fluid flows
in one direction.6­8 In these devices, however, the electrodes
are placed perpendicular to the direction of fluid flow, partially
blocking the flow and making the devices prone to pressure loss;
additionally, ring-shaped pumps are difficult to fabricate. Here, we
propose an EHD conduction microfluidic pump, which is integrated
with a microchannel; we develop an EHD pump with planar, non-
parallel electrodes and a microchannel that can be easily fabricated
using MEMS processing techniques, and evaluate its performance.
The operational concept of the EHD conduction pump
developed in this study is shown in Figure 1. The electrode pair
is arranged in a non-parallel fashion to generate a unidirectional
flow of the working fluid. The angle between the electrodes is 20°,
and the height of the fluidic channel is 50 ¯m. Figure 2 illustrates
how the net flow can be amplified by connecting multiple units of
the EHD conduction pump in series. Dimensional specifications of
the electrodes are shown in Figure 3.
Figure 1. Concept of asymmetrical electrodes structure.

950 | Chem. Lett. 2017, 46, 950–952 | doi:10.1246/cl.170217 © 2017 The Chemical Society of Japan
 Amplified net flow
Fluidic channel

Electrodes

Figure 2. Concept of amplified net flow by integrating multiple

units.

Figure 4. Fabrication processes for (a) the EHD conduction pump

electrode, and (b) the fluidic channel of the microconduction pump.

Figure 3. Schematic of dimensional specifications.

The fabrication processes for the electrodes and the fluidic

channel used in the EHD conduction pump are shown in
Figures 4a and 4b, respectively. To fabricate an electrode, a Au
film was first vapor-deposited (MSP-30T, Vacuum Device) onto a
glass substrate. The Au film was then coated with 1,1,1,3,3,3-
hexamethyldisilazane (OAP, Tokyo Ohka Kogyo), and heated in
an oven for 2 min at 90 °C. Next, the film was spin-coated with
a positive photoresist (OFPR-800LB, Tokyo Ohka Kogyo) and
heated in an oven for 30 min at 90 °C. After exposing the heated
glass substrate to light, the photoresist was developed in a
tetramethylammonium hydroxide solution (NMD-3, Tokyo Ohka
Kogyo). Finally, the excess Au film was etched off with a Au
etchant (AURUM-302, Kanto Chemical).
To fabricate the fluidic channel, a silicon (Si) wafer was spin-
coated with a negative photoresist (SU-8 3025, Nippon Kayaku)
and heated on a hot plate for 10 min at 95 °C. The Si wafer was
then photoexposed, and the photoresist was developed to create
a mold for transferring the shape onto poly(dimethylpolysiloxane)
(PDMS; Dow Corning Toray). The resulting PDMS structure was
used as the fluidic channel.
The fabricated electrodes and fluidic channel were plasma- Figure 5. Fabricated EHD conduction pumps.
treated by plasma ion bombardment (PIB-10, Vacuum Device) and
then heated at 130 °C on a hot plate to bond them together, forming indicates that a flow would be generated from the narrow region
the EHD conduction pump; photos of the fully fabricated devices between the electrodes towards region A. In this simulation, the
are shown in Figure 5. electric field concentrates the corners and narrow path of the
We used the COMSOL Multiphysics software package to electrodes, which is on the order of 103 V m¹1. Therefore, the
simulate the electric field when a voltage of 1 kV is applied to the strength of the electric field was less than 107 V m¹1 in our device,
non-parallel electrodes; the results are shown in Figure 6. As the and we used EHD conduction.
figure shows, the electric field strength increased with decreasing To test the EHD conduction pump, we attached a glass tube to
distance between the electrodes, and the electric field was the inlet and outlet of the device (Figure 7), and then filled it with
calculated to be weaker in region A than in region B. Therefore, a dielectric fluid (Novec 7300, 3M), making sure that the fluid
the differential in induced pressure between the two regions levels in the glass tubes were equal. When a voltage was applied to

Chem. Lett. 2017, 46, 950–952 | doi:10.1246/cl.170217 © 2017 The Chemical Society of Japan | 951

Figure 6. Simulation of asymmetrical structure electrodes in micro-
channel.
Figure 7. Experimental setup of the device.
the electrodes, we observed an increase in the fluid level in the
outlet glass tube and a decrease in the inlet glass tube. By applying
the principles of a manometer, the generated pressure was
calculated from the fluid level difference, h, using eq 3. The
density, µ, of Novec 7300 was 1660 kg m¹3.
P ¼ µgh ð3Þ
We also measured the generated pressure at different applied
voltages, and with multiple EHD conduction pumps (from 1 to 5
units) connected in series; these results are plotted in Figure 8. We
found that the pressure increased with increasing applied voltage,
roughly corresponding to the square of the electric field; addition-
ally, the pressure was also observed to increase when multiple
pump units were connected, with a serial 4-unit device producing a
pressure of approximately 130 Pa. The fluidic channel resistance
depends on the shape of fluidic channel, so it is inferred that the
generated pressure is not necessarily proportional to the number of
952 | Chem. Lett. 2017, 46, 950–952 | doi:10.1246/cl.170217
Figure 8. Pressure of series pumps containing different numbers of
pump units.
connections. Gravity-driven counter flow might affect the gen-
erated pressure.
We compared our generated pressure with the recent research
of micro EHD pump.9 The micro EHD pump was fabricated using
parallel electrodes 100 pairs, which were capable of generating
approximately 400 Pa when 1.2 kV applied to it. We calculate the
generated pressure from their device and the volume of their
device. Their device generated 19 Pa per mm3, and our device
generated 6.5 Pa per mm3. The ratio of generated pressure and
volume of our device is slightly less than their one. However, the
electrode thickness of the electrodes in their device is 0.25 ¯m and
the thickness of our one is 0.04 ¯m and our device has an
advantage in miniaturization.
Through this study, we have shown that an EHD conduction
pump equipped with electrodes arranged in an asymmetrical
manner can be used to generate a unidirectional flow. We were
also able to amplify the net flow by connecting multiple EHD
conduction pump units in series. Our device can be fabricated
easily using MEMS processing techniques, and a maximum
generated pressure of 130 Pa was achieved in a microfield of
height 50 ¯m, using an applied voltage of 1­5 kV. In the future,
we will conduct a study to elucidate the details of the pumping
mechanism using a molecular theory approach.
This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers
JP12345678 and JP16K14201.
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© 2017 The Chemical Society of Japan