公开(公告)号：US20120207625A1

公开(公告)日：2012-08-16

申请号：US13502411

申请日：2010-10-22

申请人： Shamus McNamara ,  Kunal Pharas ,  Chakravarthy Yamarthy ,  Alex Schultz

发明人： Shamus McNamara ,  Kunal Pharas ,  Chakravarthy Yamarthy ,  Alex Schultz

IPC分类号： F04B19/24 ,  F04B35/04

CPC分类号： F04B43/043 ,  F04B19/006 ,  F04B19/24 ,  F04B37/06

摘要： The present invention relates to thermally driven pumps. More specifically, one embodiment of the present invention relates to the use of a thermoelectric material to create a thermally driven, bi-directional pump, such as a micro pump, with no moving parts using the thermal transpiration effect (a Knudsen pump). One embodiment of the thermally driven pump of the present invention utilizes a thermoelectric material to assist with the thermal transpiration process resulting in a substantially symmetrical, bidirectional pump. A thermoelectric module is used to induce a temperature gradient across a nanoporous article having at least one nanochannel thus creating fluid flow via thermal transpiration across the nanochannel. The use of the thermoelectric module eliminates the need for a heat sink thereby making the pump substantially symmetrical and enabling bidirectional flow which is accomplished by reversing the polarity of the power supply to the thermoelectric module resulting in reversing the direction of heat transfer.A second embodiment of the thermally driven pump of the present invention comprises a uni-directional, pneumatic, micro fluidic, Knudsen pump which can be integrated into a lab-on-chip device and is configured to pump liquids. The Knudsen pump of the second embodiment is generally comprised of a channel system comprised of a nanochannel and a shallow channel embedded in a bottom substrate and capable of alignment in series with other channels within a lab-on-chip substrate. The nanochannel and shallow channel are both covered by a second substrate comprised of material conducive to finalize creation of the Knudsen channels. A heater is also included within the nanochannel to induce gas flow by thermal transpiration which pneumatically moves liquid through the channels of a lab-on-chip.

摘要翻译： 本发明涉及热驱动泵。 更具体地，本发明的一个实施例涉及使用热电材料来创建热驱动的双向泵，例如微型泵，没有使用热蒸腾作用的运动部件（克努森泵）。 本发明的热驱动泵的一个实施例利用热电材料来辅助热蒸腾过程，从而产生基本对称的双向泵。 使用热电模块来诱导具有至少一个纳米通道的纳米多孔制品的温度梯度，从而通过穿过纳米通道的热蒸腾产生流体流动。 使用热电模块消除了对散热器的需要，从而使得泵基本上对称并且实现了双向流动，这是通过使向热电模块的电源的极性反转导致热传递方向反转而实现的。 本发明的热驱动泵的第二个实施例包括一个单向的，气动的，微流体的克努森泵，其可以被集成到片上实验室装置中并被配置成泵送液体。 第二实施例的Knudsen泵通常由通道系统组成，该通道系统由嵌入在底部衬底中的纳米通道和浅通道组成，并且能够与片上实验室衬底内的其它通道串联。 纳米通道和浅通道都被包含有助于最终确定克努森通道的产生的材料构成。 纳米通道中还包括一个加热器，以通过热蒸腾来诱导气体流动，其通过气动地将液体移动通过芯片实验室的通道。