Design and fabrication of medical micro-nebulizer

The application of a spray device to treat respiratory disease has long been known to be effective. Clinical studies have shown that the finer the droplet size, the deeper position of trachea that can be reached. With the aim of enhancing the curative effect, this study proposes a new design of micro-nebulizer, integrating a piezoelectric actuator, micro-nozzle plate, and the cavity of the micro pump to achieve a high-quality atomizing effect. In this research, we built a novel portable micro-nebulizer device with a changeable and cleanable medication chamber, which can generate a spray droplet of less than 4.04 mu m in size (sauter mean diameters, SMD) and has a nebulizer rate of 0.5 ml/min. The device has an electrical requirement of drive voltage only 3 V, with a low power consumption of 1.2 W and an optimal operation frequency of 120 kHz. According to the simulations and experiments, it can be inferred that the droplet size distribution of the micro-nebulizer described in this research is finer and more uniform than that of the current conventional devices; furthermore, the system power consumption is lower than that of the ultrasonic-type nebulizer. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.