Design and Development of a PDMS Membrane based SU-8 Micropump for drug Delivery System Bidhan Pramanick 1a , P. K. Dey b , Soumen Das c , T. K. Bhattacharyya d a Department of Avionics, IIST Valiamala, Department of Space, Trivandrum, India-695547 b Advanced Technology Development Centre, IIT Kharagpur, Kharagpur, India-721302 c School of Medical Science and Technology, IIT Kharagpur, Kharagpur, India-721302 d Department of E & ECE, IIT Kharagpur, Kharagpur, India-721302 Correspondong author: 1 bidhan.pramanick@gmail.com Abstract A micropump is one of the key components of a Drug Delivery System (DDS) and it can be integrated with microneedle for localized drug delivery in even one single cell. The conventional drug deliv- ery system is replaced by MEMS (Micro-electro-mechanical sys- tem) DDS due to its ability to deliver very small amounts of the drug in the dermis region of the patient’s body without any pain. This paper presents the design and fabrication of a PDMS (Polydimethylsiloxane) membrane based SU-8 micropump. The pump chamber is made of SU-8 on a glass substrate. A separately pro- cessed PDMS layer of 150 μm is treated in oxygen plasma to make a strong bond with SU-8. The detailed fabrication procedure is de- scribed here and the advantage of using a PDMS membrane as well as SU-8 material is also discussed. Piezoelectric discs are used for the actuation of the micropump membrane. The deflections of the membrane at different frequencies are measured using MSA 400 (Micro System Analyzer) of Polytec and they are shown to be maxi- mum at 5009 Hz frequency for 30 V. The flowrate measurement using DI water is also discussed here. INSTITUTE OF SMART STRUCTURES AND SYSTEMS (ISSS) JOURNAL OF ISSS J. ISSS Vol. 2 No. 1, pp. 1-9, March 2013. REGULAR PAPER Available online at www.isssonline.in/journal/02paper01.pdf Paper presented at ISSS International Conference on Smart Materials Structures & Systems, January 4-7, 2012, (ISSS 2012) Bangalore, India 1 Keywords: Drug Delivery System, PDMS, SU-8, microfabrication, micropump, Piezoelectric 1. Introduction Micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) based microfluidic devices have received attention in the biomedical field over the last decade. Several active research groups are presently involved in developing micropumps and microneedles separately, and with their integrated version for the precise control of drug delivery in a localised area or even in a single cell. The concept of an integrated drug delivery system is illustrated in figure1. Fig. 1 A block diagram of an integrated microfluidic device for drug delivery