Competitive Advantages
Inexpensive, Highly reliable, Scalable pump rate, Reduced fabrication complexity.
In one embodiment, a fluid storage device includes a rigid outer housing that defines a septum cavity, a reservoir cavity, and a channel that extends between the two cavities, the outer housing further defining an outlet in fluid communication with the reservoir cavity, a septum provided within the septum cavity, the septum being made of an elastic polymer and facilitating refilling of the fluid storage device, and a thin, collapsible membrane that does not generate significant restoring forces when it is deformed as fluid is drawn from the reservoir cavity and, therefore, does not completely or partially return to its initial non-deformed shape even if the outlet of the device remains open after doses are administered.Our inventors have developed peristaltic micro pumps that are fabricated with direct write printing technologies. The micro-pumps are fabricated such that they are scalable to a broad range of pump rates. These novel fabrication methods achieve significant reductions in fabrication complexity, cost, and micro-pump size. The methods not only provide a controlled fluid flow path that minimizes the number of materials and sources of potential failure of conformal coatings, the techniques also enable integration of the micro-pumps directly on traditional printed circuit board assemblies for low-cost, ultra-miniaturized integration of commercial off the shelf control electronics without complicated interconnects and associated failure modes.These peristaltic micro-pumps, due to their ability to be sterilized, can be used in chemical, pharmaceutical, and food industries; medical applications like vascular or neural drug delivery; and drug administration for protective and restorative biotherapies for noise induced-, sensorineural-, and age-related hearing loss, deafness, and vestibular disorders.
Brochure
