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A review on Passive Microvalves and their

Application.
Wasif Alam

Abstract—Micro-valves are one of the building blocks in any

microfluidic devices. There are different classification of micro-
valves that has been used in various fields. This review presents an
overview of various designs of passive micro-valves solely focusing
on their actuation mechanism and applications like Lab-On-a-
Chip devices and digital microfluidics. Passive micro-valves are
an attractive choice because of their less energy consumption and
high durability. Passive microvalves has been developed as a key
components to control flow in various microfluidic applications.
Though the progress of development of passive micro-valves is
not as high as their active counter part but there is an abundance
of room for further advances and suitable use in the future game
changing applications of Lab-on-a-Chip devices.

I. I NTRODUCTION
The microfluidic technology has been a revolution in device
miniaturization and microscale control and manipulation of
fluids. The most basic microfluidic components are microp-
umps for powering the fluid flow, microvalves for manipulating
the flow directions and micro channels for sending the fluids
to their destination . Together they form the building blocks
of any microfluidic devices. The prior application of these
devices would be the Lab on a chip devices , point of care
diagnosting system, effective drug delivery etc.
Fig. 1.
Microvalves found today can be roughly categorized as
shown in table 1. Most of them generally fall into one of
two major categories: active microvalves, using mechanicaland
non-mechanicalmoving parts, as well as external systems, and
passive microvalves, using mechanical and non-
mechanicalmoving parts.
From table 1. it is clear that the passive microvalves can
be primarily classified based on their mechanism as check
valves and capillary valve.Check valves capillary valves can
be further classified as mechanical and non mechanical based
on their actuation process.
Therefore in this paper the developments and designs that Fig. 2. Commonly used Capillary Micro-valves [1] .
are done in recent years in this category will be thoroughly
discussed.
The electrophoresis capillary valve was used in a Bio-
II. C APILLARY M ICRO - VALVE : reactor on a Chip for baker’s yeast fermentation by Filomena
et al [2]. The valve was operated using electrophoretic flow
Capillary micro-valves are one kind of passive micro-valves
principle. It is implemented quite effectively to maintain flow
that uses capillary effects or it’s geometry itself to control fluid
in the micro mixers and to avoid mechanical actuation in the
flow in a micro-fluidic device. Capillary micro-valves can be
micro-fluidic portion of the bio-reactor on chip system.
categorized according to the type of capillary effects they use
[1]. Ling Xie et al [3] designed a passive capillary microvalve
As shown in Fig.1 the most commonly used capillary valves within a bio-microfluidic packaging for a DNA Lab on a Chip
are electrowetting capillary microvalves, thermal capillary system . Figure 3, shows that the capillary microvalve controls
microvalves and passive capillary microvalves. the flow from the reservoir to the cartridge channel. When the
flow rate passes the threshold level the valve opens up and
Wasif Alam (e-mail: wasif.wad@gmail.com) lets the fluid flow into the DNA Lab on a Chip .

Fig. 3. Structure of the capillary microvalve [4]
A comparison among the capillary valves of different shapes
such as rectangular , square and circular was studied by
Michelle et al [4] .From the results of this study it can be
concluded that the threshold pressure is directly proportional to
the geometrical ratio of capillary microvalves. Figure 4 shows
a plot of threshold pressure of the valve compared to their
geometrical ratio.
G.C Biswas et al [5] developed a hydrophobic capillary
microvalve for autonomous microfluidic realization. This valve
consists of a hydrophobic SAM (self assessment mono-layer)
on a platinum electrode formed on a PDMS flow channel.
The valve operates by using the capillary actions created by
changing the mixed potential in the electrode. In other words
this valve only opens when the valve electrode detects an
electrolyte solution in the flow chamber.
Fig. 4. Autonomous opening of the valve accompanying
the wetting of a zinc electrode in the controlling flow channel.
(a) A solution introduced into the flow channel moves in the
main flow channel but stops at the valve. (b) When an
electrolyte solution passes the zinc part in the controlling
flow channel, the valve opens and the solution in the main
flow channel passes the valve area.
D. Mark et al reported a hydrophobic capillary valve for
the development of a centrifugal microfluidic system [6] .
The valves are designed to have a range of centrifugal burst
pressure of 2100 pa to 6700 pa . Figure 6 explains the relation
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between the centrifugal pressure and connection channel depth
of the micro valve.
III. D IFFUSER M ICROVALVE :
A diffuser micro-valve is common in the passive check
micro-valve category .It’s main advantage is the ability to
mitigate the clogging problem in the check valves .
A proposal has been made to improve the performance
of conventional diffusers by increasing the tapering angle of
the nozzle and turn the geometry of the nozzle into a saw-
tooth structure by adding more circular area . This design was
proposed by Chung et al [7] where a comparative study was
also shown that point out the increase in efficiency by using
the proposed micro-valve instead of the conventional one.
Fig. 5. Velocity distribution of two micro-valves at = 10Hz and t = 0.125sec
[7] .
A diffuser valve is designed by Chiao [8] using the micro-
sphere for low pressure and low flow rate application for ocular
drug delivery micropump. The design of this valve includes
a 35 um channel and a 20 um PS microsphere in the valve
chamber.
Fig. 6. (a) Schematic of a pump with checkvalves at the inlet and
outlet side of the reciprocating pump chamber; (b)and (c) Top view of the
check valve pump showingmicrosphere position in inlet and outlet side ofthe
valve chambers as the pumping diaphragm compresses anddecompresses,
respectively; (d) Microspheres inreverse flow direction for the inlet side valve.
(e) Microspheres in forward flow direction for the outlet side valve; (f)and
(g) Isometric view of pillars and microspheres in microvalve. (h)Microscope
images of a fabricated valve chamber with dimensions [8] .
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Tsai and Lin [9] generated a net flowfrom an inlet to an TABLE I

outlet by a thermally actuated bubble micropump. A pair of N ON -M ECHANICAL PASSIVE M ICROVALVES
flat-walled diffusers with 30 µm in a narrow neck, 274 µm in Reference Type Ma- Application
an open mouth and a tapered angle of 14◦ was fabricated by terial
a silicon deep reactive ion etching (DRIE) process. Filomena et Electrophoresis PDMS Bio-reactor chip.
al [2] Capillary
Ling Xie et Passive Capillary PDMS DNA LOC
al[3]
IV. PASSIVE M ICROVALVES M ECHANICAL : Michelle et Capillary Si Performance betterment
al[4]
A. Flap Microvalve: G.C Biswas Hydrophobic PDMS autonomous microfluidic
et al [5] Capillary realization.
Feng and Kim [11] fabricated a cantilever-type 3 µm thick D. Mark et Hydrophobic PDMS Centrifugal microfluidic
al[6] Capillary system.
Parylene flap valve with a fundamental resonant frequency of Chung et al Diffuser Si Performance betterment
around 500 Hz for a piezoelectric micropump as shown in [7]
figure 9. They used Parylene for the valve materials due to its Chiao [8] Diffuser Si Drug delivery
Tsai and Lin Diffuser PDMS Part of bubble
low permeability to liquid and low Young’s modulus which is [9] micropump
30 times less than that of silicon.
TABLE II
M ECHANICAL PASSIVE M ICROVALVES :

Reference Type Mate- Application

rial
Feng and Kim Cantilever flap Pary- Piezoelectric
[11] lene micropump
Yang et al [12] Bivalvular flap Si Pressure
improvement
Guerin et al Membrane one Poly- Drug delivery
[13] shot mer
Xuan et al [14] Membrane Pary- Reducing flow
lene resistance

Fig. 7. Parylyne cantilever type bridge membrane microvalve [11] .
Yang et al [12] fabricated a pair of bivalvular silicon
microvalves by using the p+ etch-stop method . Each valve had
two 2 µm thick flexible p+ silicon wings with a slit width of
25 µm. Water flow rates of 1600 µl min−1 at 4 kPa of forward
pressure and 50 µl min−1 at 4 kPa of backward pressure were
obtained.
B. Membrane Microvalve:
A miniature one shot valve using membrane was designed
and fabricated by Guerin et al [13] . One shot actions such as
delivering drug to a micro-pill or triggering a micro-bioreactor
this membrane based valve is used. Using the heating resistor
to melt the outer layer of membrane thus weakening the
polymer the valve is opened.
Xuan et al [14] introduced a parylene based membrane
micro-valve that is able to reduce flow resistance and allow
large membrane displacement. This valve is developed as an
improvement in performance regarding similar micro-valves.
V. A NALYSIS
A. Non-Mechanical Passive Microvalves
B. Mechanical Passive Microvalves
VI. D ISCUSSION
Throughout this review, the development of microvalves has
been surveyed with respect to various operation mechanisms
and their applications. The applications of the microvalves
include flow regulation, on/off switching, or sealing of-
biomolecules, micro or nano particles, chemical reagents,
oils, water, bubbles, gases, vacuum and many others. The
desired characteristics of the microvalves include no leakage
flow, reduced dead volume, reduced power consumption,
large pressure resistance, normally closed or open mode,
insensitivity to particulate contamination, rapid response time,
potential for linear operation, ability to operate with both
liquids and gases and disposability . To meet these
requirements, various approaches have been explored in the
development of microvalves. Apparently there is no such
microvalve that favors all applications ranging from life
sciences to vacuum. Therefore in practice, only a subset of the
selected characteristics of a specific microvalve is important
in a given application. [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9],
[10], [11]
VII. C ONCLUSION
The development of microvalves has been progressing
rapidly in recent years. As a result the performance of
microvalves has been constantly improved and features such
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as leakage flow, resistible pressure, power consumption,

dead volume, response time, biochemical compatibility and
disposability have been partially addressed and solved.
However, there is an abundance of room for improving
the performance of the microvalves and making them cost
effective for further commercialization. Breakthrough ideas
will make it possible to realize a fully integrated disposable
microfluidic lab-on-a-chip for personal diagnostics orwellness
applications. In addition to the LOC applications, the
microvalves will become building blocks in high throughput
microfluidic platforms for stem cell study or drug discovery.
Furthermore, the microvalves will be embedded in various
microfluidic systems, including space exploration, fuel cell,etc.
There is no doubt that in the near future microfluidic
platforms embedded with microvalves will be as prevalent as
microprocessors are today.

R EFERENCES
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MICROMECHANICS AND MICROENGINEERING, 2006.
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[3] L. Xie, S. C. Chong, C. S. Premachandran, M. Chew, and U. Raghavan,
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[4] M. Chew and W. Teo, in Electronics Packaging Technology Conference,
2006.
[5] G. C. Biswas and T. Watanabe, “AUTONOMOUS MICROFLUIDICS
REALIZED WITH ACTIVE HYDROPHOBIC VALVES.”
[6] M. Khoo and C. Liu, in EMBS International Conference, 2OOO.
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FOR CENTRIFUGAL MICROFLUIDICS BASED ON A NEW PNEU-
MATIC VALVE.”
[8] C. K. Chung and T. R. Shih, in IEEE International Conference On Nano
Engineering, 2009.
[9] X.-O. Wang, Q. Lin, and Y.-C. Tai, “A Parylene Micro Check Valve.”
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