Liquid metal pump boost for microfluidics

According to the university, the design will enable micro-fluidics and lab-on-a-chip technology to finally realise their potential, with applications ranging from biomedicine to biofuels.

The research has been published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Lead investigator Dr Khashayar Khoshmanesh, a Research Fellow in the Centre for Advanced Electronics and Sensors at RMIT, said currently there was no easy way to drive liquid around a fluidic chip in micro-fabricated systems.

‘Lab-on-a-chip systems hold great promise for applications such as biosensing and blood analysis but they currently rely on cumbersome, large-scale external pumps, which significantly limit design possibilities,’ he said in a statement.

‘Our unique pump enabled by a single droplet of liquid metal can be easily integrated into a micro device, has no mechanical parts and is both energy efficient and easy to produce or replace.

‘Integrated micro-fluidics has the potential to revolutionise the way we process chemicals and manipulate bio-particles at the micro-scale.