Abstract
A new induction-heating-based microvalve using paraffin composite is successfully demonstrated in this paper. The microvalve consists of a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) chip, a PDMS diaphragm, a column of paraffin composite, a glass paraffin composite chamber, a glass substrate and three excitation coils. Joule heat is induced by the eddy current inside the paraffin composite relied on induction heating. One advantage of the microvalve is that there is no physical contact between the heater and the external power supply circuit, which resulted in a simple structure and a relatively easy fabrication process. The experiments shows that the thermally actuated microvalve can close a flow of 2.75 μL/s within 8–10 s against a pressure of 10 kPa with an input power of 1.12 W, and when closed, the valve can passively withstand an inlet pressure up to 40 kPa under the input power of 2.31 W without leakage. The microvalve is very suited for flow control in portable lab-on-a-chip systems.
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Acknowledgements
This work was financially supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51675014), Beijing Natural Science Foundation, China (No. 3192010 and No. 3172005) and National Innovative Methodology Project of China (No. 2018IM0301004).
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Liu, B., Yang, J., Yang, J. et al. A thermally actuated microvalve using paraffin composite by induction heating. Microsyst Technol 25, 3969–3975 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00542-019-04373-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00542-019-04373-8