A review of recent studies on piezoelectric pumps and their applications

Piezoelectric pumps have obtained considerable significance and have become the focus area of research for biomedicine, fuel supply, liquid cooling, chemistry and precision driving, etc. The advance direction of piezoelectric pumps integrates transfer devices into microfluidic systems to accomplish the requirement for accurate transfer of fluids. Various piezoelectric pumps have been emerged in recent decades, and the recent research and development have been brought out in the present review. This work highlights the development history and focuses particularly on the research of piezoelectric pumps in four aspects: configuration design, working mode, optimization and application, respectively. Firstly, some representative configurations of piezoelectric pumps including valve, chamber and piezoelectric vibrator are provided, and the performances are compared based on overall size, voltage, frequency, flowrate, pressure, flowrate density and pumping medium, etc. The advantages of piezoelectric pumps are discussed and the disadvantages are analyzed where appropriate. Secondly, two typical working modes and performance analyses of piezoelectric pumps including non-resonant and resonant modes are discussed. Thirdly, some optimization investigations and applications of piezoelectric pumps are summarized. Finally, the conclusions are given and the future development perspectives of piezoelectric pumps are discussed. The main contribution of this review is to give a synthetic understanding on piezoelectric pumps. This work also attempts to provide both a guidance for piezoelectric pump researchers on improving their output performances and a resource for those outside the field who wish to identify the best piezoelectric pump for a particular application. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

This article reviews the importance and research direction of piezoelectric pumps in various fields. It analyzes the design, working modes, optimization, and applications of piezoelectric pumps, providing comparisons of different configurations and working modes.