**7. Conclusions**

Debiotech 2014 [22]

In this paper, the response of a new piezoelectric micropump is investigated by means of a multiphysics computational model. The most important novelty of the proposed design, inspired by a recent patent [12] related to electrostatic actuation, is that the device can be manufactured on two silicon wafers only. In that way, important benefits are introduced with respect to existing devices, such as the simplicity of the process and the absence of a multi-stack wafer bonding and its related defects like misalignments between wafers or damages to the middle wafers during the process. The computational outcomes confirm that the proposed micropump can provide a sufficient outflow for biomedical applications that is in the order of 10 μL min−<sup>1</sup> [24]. The power consumption appears to be sufficiently limited. The performances of the micropump are boosted by means of simple geometric modifications. By replacing the circular chamber with an elliptical one, the dead zones are decreased significantly and the outflow increases. The analyses sugges<sup>t</sup> that the optimal results are achieved for an aspect ratio equal to 2. Moreover, the presence of rectifiers instead of straight channels is proposed in order to reduce the backflow of the fluid.

Table 4 shows a comparison between the proposed micropump in this research with other devices that have been fabricated up to now. The comparison is satisfactory: The present study paves the way for the development of micropump prototypes that could be tested in order to double check the performance of the new device.


**Table 4.** A comparison of the proposed micropump with some previously fabricated devices. (∗ not reported).

 3.125  NR  200  41.67

 84 **Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, A.C. and R.A.; data curation, S.A.F.F.Y.; funding acquisition, A.C.; methodology, S.A.F.F.Y. and R.A.; software, S.A.F.F.Y.; supervision, A.C.; writing—original draft, S.A.F.F.Y.; writing—review and editing, R.A. and A.C.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
