Day 1

Flow Control Approaches for Microfluidic Setups

The flow control in a microchannel can be volume-based like with syringe pumps or pressure-based like pressure controllers or peristaltic pumps. All approaches are legitimated to be used. Still, depending on applications and setup one of the approaches can be more favourable. 

A stable flow is achieved with pressure controllers. In the peristaltic pump the volume is displaced by regular peristaltic tube squeezing. Thus, it is accompanied with pulsations, which can be disadvantageous for  microfluidics. Syringe pumps can also have pulsations. 

Besides, a pressure-based flow control methods are used for cases when you need to refill the storage reservoirs without interrupting the experiments. 

icon_07