IPMC Assisted Infusion Micropumps

Il-Seok Park Sonia VohnouP, Mark Banister, Sangki Lee, Sang-Mun Kim and Kwang J. Kim  

Medipacs LLC, Tucson, USA Volvo Korea, South Korea 

Biomedical Applications of Electroactive Polymer Actuators Edited by Federico Carpi and Elisabeth Smela 2009 John Wiley Sons Ltd. ISBN 978-0-470-77305-5 

IPMCs are smart materials that exhibit electromechanical (actuator) and mechanoelectrical (sensor) applications. Table 9.1 shows performance properties of state-of-the art IPMCs [5]. They bend quickly under a low voltage, as first reported by Oguro and his co-workers [6]. Later, Abe et al. introduced the important role of existent counter ions and their influence during the bending [7]. Asaka and Oguro introduced a theory of the actuation mechanisms [8] Shahinpoor and Kim demonstrated that the ionic polymer actuator performance depends on the type of cation [9] and further developed a two-step fabrication method [10] in accordance with their findings. In addition, other groups tried to incorporate various metals as electrode materials to articulate physical properties or electrical responses [11-14]. 

Eifetime Up to 1 million cycles (estimated) 250 000 (experimentally reported) 

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Figure 9.3 An illustration of the IPMC infusion micropump (Reproduced with permission from Vohnout, S., Kim, S.-M., Park, l.-S. and Banister, M., IPMC-assisted miniature disposable infusion pumps with embedded computer control. Proceedings of the SPIE conference 2007. Copyright (2007) SPIE).

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