Letter https://doi.org/10.

1038/s41586-019-1479-6

Stretchable pumps for soft machines

Vito Cacucciolo1*, Jun Shintake2,3, Yu Kuwajima4, Shingo Maeda4, Dario Floreano2 & Herbert Shea1*

Machines made of soft materials bridge life sciences and high strain at rupture (>100%) and widespread use in microfluidics.
engineering1. Advances in soft materials have led to skin-like We use established elastomer processing technologies which are highly
sensors and muscle-like actuators for soft robots and wearable reproducible and can readily be scaled up for industrial production27–29.
devices 1–3. Flexible or stretchable counterparts of most key The cross-section and length of the channel, number of electrodes and
mechatronic components have been developed4,5, principally gap between them can all be easily scaled up or down thanks to our
using fluidically driven systems6–8; other reported mechanisms versatile fabrication methods. Extended Data Fig. 2 shows the details
include electrostatic9–12, stimuli-responsive gels13,14 and thermally of the fabrication process, and Extended Data Fig. 3 shows the four
responsive materials such as liquid metals15–17 and shape-memory generations of pumps that we developed.
polymers18. Despite the widespread use of fluidic actuation, Numerous combinations of materials can be implemented for the
there have been few soft counterparts of pumps or compressors, pump body, electrode and dielectric liquid, subject to the requirement
limiting the portability and autonomy of soft machines 4,8. that the body and electrodes must be stretchable. We focus on two ver-
Here we describe a class of soft-matter bidirectional pumps based sions that share the same channel geometry and interdigitated electrode
on charge-injection electrohydrodynamics19. These solid-state design, but with different electrode materials and operating liquids, to
pumps are flexible, stretchable, modular, scalable, quiet and rapid. illustrate the dependency of pump performance on materials. We refer
By integrating the pump into a glove, we demonstrate wearable to these two devices with carbon- and silver-based electrodes as the C
active thermal management. Embedding the pump in an inflatable pump and Ag pump.
structure produces a self-contained fluidic ‘muscle’. The stretchable The C pump electrodes are a stretchable composite of carbon black
pumps have potential uses in wearable laboratory-on-a-chip and and PDMS, patterned by laser engraving; the fluid is Novec 7100 from
microfluidic sensors, thermally active clothing and autonomous 3M. The Ag pump uses a printed stretchable silver ink (Chimet Ag
soft robots. 520 EI) electrodes, and Fluorinert FC-40 from 3M as the dielectric
Conventional pumps and compressors are bulky, rigid systems liquid. The Ag devices offer much longer lifetime and higher pres-
including impellers, bearings and electrical motors. They often require sure, but require higher voltages than the C pumps. Fluorinert FC-40
lubrication and produce noise. Even miniaturized pumps (for exam- is compatible with most elastomers, including PDMS, allowing relia-
ple those based on piezo-actuators or electrophoresis20) are rigid and ble, long-term operation of the pump. In contrast, Novec 7100 swells
have moving parts, with few exceptions (see Extended Data Table 1). PDMS, but is widely used in rigid EHD devices. Ag electrodes enable
The lack of electrically powered flexible or stretchable pumps hinders continuous pumping operation for many hours, whereas the carbon
many applications of fluid-driven soft-systems, ranging from electrodes have a limited lifetime of about 15 min. An advantage of
robotics and mechatronics (actuators and sensors) to biology (for the C pumps is a minimum voltage for pumping that is roughly half
example microfluidics for cell cultures) and to wearable devices (heat that of Ag pumps (2.5 kV versus 5 kV). However, the Ag pumps can
distribution). sustain roughly twice the voltage of the C pump (10 kV versus 6 kV)
Here we present a class of soft-matter pumps consisting of a mon- and can thus generate higher maximum pressure. For the C pump, we
olithic elastomer tube with embedded compliant electrodes (Fig. 1a, measured a generated pressure of over 7 kPa and a maximum flow rate
Supplementary Video 1). The pumping mechanism is charge-injection of over 100 μl s−1 at 5.6 kV, compared with a maximum pressure of over
electrohydrodynamics (EHD): a dielectric fluid in the channel is accel- 14 kPa at 10 kV for the Ag pump. The response time is under 1 s from
erated by means of a high d.c. electric field (6–20 V μm−1) (Fig. 1b), zero to maximum pressure for the C pump. The Ag pumps shows in
allowing pumping in both directions19,21–25. See Methods and Extended general a slower response. Its performance can be increased by a brief
Data Fig. 1 for a description of the EHD mechanism used. Figure 1c pre-conditioning step at high fields (20 kV mm−1).
shows a comparison between the stretchable pumps, a high-performance Figure 2 shows the results of both steady-state and transient
miniature pump (TCS Micropumps, MGD 1000S) and a large off-the- characterization experiments. The very low electrical current (1–20 µA)
shelf compressor (McMaster, single tank portable air compressor), and low power (100 mW) allows the pumps to be powered by means
both commonly used to power soft fluidic actuators26. Figure 1d and of miniature batteries and miniaturized d.c.–d.c. converters (Extended
Supplementary Video 2 show the stretchable pump moving liquid Data Fig. 4). Flow rate and pressure values are high enough for macro-
between two ventricles of a heart-shaped balloon, demonstrating scale applications. Additionally, the modular pump elements can be
bidirectional pumping and high flow-rates. Our solid-state stretcha- connected in series (Fig. 2f and Extended Data Fig. 5) to increase the
ble pumps have no moving parts, are silent, produce no vibration and output pressure or in parallel to multiply the flow rate. Safe operation
operate well when highly bent and even stretched, making them ideal on the human body is enabled by using only materials and liquids with
candidates for miniaturization and portability in soft systems. low toxicity and by limiting the electrical current to values far below the
The modular pumps are compact (75 mm long × 19 mm wide × human-safety threshold. The intrinsic compliance, low mass and low
1.3 mm thick with a fluidic channel of dimensions 55 mm long × power consumption make the soft pumps an enabling tool for portable
2 mm wide × 0.5 mm thick) and lightweight (1.0 g), and are controlled soft robotics and fluid-based wearable devices. The key performance
simply by changing the applied voltage. The pump body material is metrics of our stretchable pumps, including specific pressure, specific
polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), chosen for its low Young’s modulus, flow rate and specific power consumption, are comparable to those

1
Soft Transducers Laboratory (LMTS), Institute of Microengineering, School of Engineering, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Neuchâtel, Switzerland. 2Laboratory of Intelligent
Systems (LIS), Institute of Microengineering, School of Engineering, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland. 3Department of Mechanical and Intelligent Systems
Engineering, School of Informatics and Engineering, University of Electro-Communications, Tokyo, Japan. 4Smart Materials Laboratory, Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics,
Shibaura Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan. *e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]

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 Letter RESEARCH

10 mm 10 mm 10 mm

b Top layer Channel longitudinal cross-section V

Electrode ––––– +++++ ––––– +++++

Inlet e–
e– x– e– e– x– x
x
x– x–

Channel x Net flow x

x– x–
Electrical x– x x– x
connection e– – – – – – +++++ e
– e– – – – – – +++++ e–
Outlet
Bottom layer g g 2g

c Stretchable pumps High-performance miniature pump Off-the-shelf compressor

Mass (kg) Power consumption (W) Specific pressure (bar kg–1) Specific flow rate (ml min–1 kg–1)
10–4 10–3 10–2 10–1 100 101 10–2 10–1 100 101 102 103 10–4 10–3 10–2 10–1 100 101 10–1 100 101 102 103

d 6 kV
Battery-driven
0 kV 6 kV
power supply

Flow 75 mm Flow
+ –
– +

104 s 31 s

Fig. 1 | Stretchable pumps based on charge-injection EHD. a, Pumps field until they discharge at the anode, dragging neutral liquid along their
made with carbon (left) and silver electrodes (centre) bent to a small path and thus leading to fluid flow. c, Performance comparison between
radius of curvature. Right, carbon pump stretched by 50%. b, Schematic the stretchable pumps, a miniature pump (TCS Micropumps, MGD
diagram of the stretchable pump (left). The top and bottom layers are 1000S) and an off-the-shelf compressor (McMaster, single-tank portable
PDMS membranes of thickness 0.4 mm, on which 30-µm-thick compliant air compressor). d, Demonstration of a stretchable pump moving liquid
electrodes are patterned. The channel is a laser-cut 0.5-mm-thick PDMS between two ventricles of a heart-shaped balloon. By changing the polarity
layer. Operating principle of the pump (right). Both top and bottom of the applied voltage, the flow direction can be reversed. The pump is
electrodes are interdigitated. The gap g between fingers of opposite driven by a 20 g battery-operated 6 kV power supply (see Supplementary
polarity is 0.5 mm, and the spacing between finger pairs is 1 mm. The Video 2). The central panel is at time 0. The right panel image is taken
channel is filled with dielectric liquid. When the applied electric field after 31 s of pumping from left to right ventricle; the left image after 104 s
exceeds a threshold of 5–8 V μm−1, electrons tunnel from the cathode of pumping from right to left ventricle.
into the liquid. The resulting ions (X−) are accelerated by the electric

of published micropumps and commercial pumps (see Fig. 1c and pump, driven by a bipolar ±8 kV square wave. The period of the square
Extended Data Table 1 which contains an overview of pumps operating wave is 120 s for the first 25 min and 240 s in the following 35 min.
on a wide range of principles as reviewed in refs 20,30,31). The pumps are undamaged after this experiment, thanks to the very
Although the C and Ag pumps can both operate at strains of over good compatibility between PDMS, the Ag electrodes and the FC-40
50%, we characterized the performance of the C pumps at 0% and 10% dielectric liquid. Figure 2d, e show the transient response of the C
applied strain (Fig. 2a), as these strain levels are typical of many soft pumps to a 1 Hz unipolar square wave and a 4.7 kV and 4.5 kV voltage
robotics or wearable applications. The simultaneous measurement of step respectively. The pressure–voltage response is stable and repeat-
generated flow rate and pressure provides the characteristic curve of able. Figure 2f demonstrates pump modularity: three pumps are con-
the stretchable pumps (Fig. 2b), showing a sub-linear decrease of the nected in series (Extended Data Fig. 5) and total pressure is measured
pressure as the flow-rate is increased. Performance is nearly unchanged when one, two or all three pumps are activated. The generated pressure
at 10% strain for constant applied electric field. The planar and sym- scales with the number of active pumps.
metric electrode design allow the generation of flow in both directions, There is a large parameter space of electrode configurations and
based on the direction of the applied electric field, as shown in Fig. 2b channel geometries that could be explored to increase performance
for the Ag pump, whose pumping direction can be repeatedly reversed. further (see Methods section and Extended Data Fig. 1). The differ-
The C pumps can also pump in either direction, but unlike the Ag ences between C and Ag pumps indicate that electrode materials and
pumps, the C pumps only operate in the direction in which the field fluid choice have an important role in performance and offer an avenue
was applied at first operation. Figure 2c shows a lifetime test of the Ag to improve pressure and flow rate.

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 RESEARCH Letter

a C pumps b C and Ag pumps c Ag pumps

2.0 10 3
5 V = 8 kV

Current (μA) Pressure (kPa)

Strain 0%, 4.8 kV
1.6 Strain 10%, 5.3 kV 0 2
Pressure (kPa)

–5

Pressure (kPa)
C pumps 1
1.2 –10 Ag pumps
–15 + Polarity
0
30 – Polarity
0.8
20 –1
0.4 10 –2
0
0 –10 –3
0 10 20 30 40 50 –10 –5 0 5 10 0 20 40 60
Flow rate (μl s–1) Voltage (kV) Time (min)
d C pumps e C pumps f Ag pumps
10
5.0 15
3.0 Voltage (kV) 3 30
4.0 10
4.0 5

Pressure (kPa)
Pressure (kPa)
Pressure (kPa) 3.0 5
Voltage (kV)

2.0 2 20

Voltage (kV)
3.0 Current (μA) 0 0
2.0 2.0 1 pump
1.0 1 10 2 pum –5
ps
1.0 1.0 –5 –10
3 pum
0.0 0 0 ps
0.0 0.0 –15
–10
0.0 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0 6.0 7.0 0.0 1.0 2.0 3.0 0 20 40 60 80
Time (s) Time (s) Time (s)
Fig. 2 | Performance of the stretchable EHD pumps. a, Pressure versus 1 hour. d, Pressure generated by the C pump in response to a 1 Hz square
flow rate for the C pump at 0% and 10% strain. Error bars represent the wave of amplitude 0–4.7 kV. e, Transient response of the C pumps to a
standard deviation of 4 measurements. The voltage was increased by 10% 4.5 kV voltage step, showing a pressure rise time of 0.4 s and a fall time of
at 10% strain to keep the same electric field as at 0% strain. b, Pressure 0.14 s, both at 10% to 90% pressure. f, Pressure generated by three pumps
and electrical current versus applied voltage, for zero flow rate (the output connected in series, when one, two or all three pumps are activated. For
valve is closed), for both C and Ag pumps. For the Ag pumps, the flow the curves representing one pump and two pumps, the data shown are
direction can be reversed by reversing the polarity of the applied voltage. the mean over three experiments, in order to include data from all three
c, Lifetime test on the Ag pumps, applying a ±8 kV square wave for devices.

We illustrate the broad applicability of the stretchable pumps by from a hot zone, consisting of a membrane heater, to a cooling tube
demonstrating a wearable application and a soft robotics scenario. embedded in the glove. We monitor the temperature of the system
In the wearable demonstration, the pump is integrated in a textile glove using an infrared camera, which showed that the temperature of the
to actively circulate fluid to transport heat between regions on the body heater was decreased by fluid circulation and that the soft pump did not
(Fig. 3). In the soft robotics scenario, we demonstrate a self-contained heat the liquid, thanks to the pump’s low power consumption.
fluidic actuator in which the pump is embedded in the soft bending The heater in this experiment can represent, for example, overheat-
structure to move fluid between two chambers, resulting in large actu- ing following intense physical activity. For a temperature difference
ation without external fluidic connections (Fig. 4). ΔT = 6 K and a flow rate Q = 100 µl s−1, we can estimate a heat trans-
For the demonstration of wearable temperature control (Fig. 3), the port ability of 1.1 W, an order of magnitude higher than the power
pump is integrated in a textile glove and circulates the dielectric fluid consumption of the pump (about 0.1 W), showing its effectiveness as

Fig. 3 | Stretchable pump embedded in a

textile glove for on-body thermal regulation.
The closed-loop fluidic circuit consists of the
pump and a serpentine flexible tube sewn into the
textile glove (the ‘cold’ side), and of a serpentine
flexible tube bonded to a flexible heater (the ‘hot’
side). The wearer can easily flex the wrist while
the pump is operating. The pump circulates the
fluid from the heater to the glove and then back
on the opposite side. The colours in the infrared
images correspond to a temperature map (see
colour bar, far right). The leftmost infrared image
shows the initial condition when both heater and
pump are off. For the second infrared image, the
heater is on and the pump is off: the temperature
at the heater is considerably higher than at the
arm. The third infrared picture is taken a few
seconds after the pump is activated. One can see
the cold liquid entering the ‘hot’ circuit from
the right tube and the heat being transported
away from the left tube. The rightmost infrared
image shows that the temperature of the heater
is decreased after 40 s of fluid circulation. The
unchanged temperature of the soft pump confirms
its negligible heat generation. Supplementary
Video 3 shows the device in action.

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 Letter RESEARCH

a b Received: 18 September 2018; Accepted: 13 June 2019;

Soft actuator Published online 15 August 2019.
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Methods generates flow according to the gradient in the electric field (from the larger gap
Electrohydrodynamic pumping principle. EHD pumping refers to the acceler- side to the smaller gap side). However, the conduction pumping mechanism
ation of a fluid by means of an electric field19. In this work, we have explored two is less subject to electrode deterioration than the charge injection used in the
EHD pumping mechanisms. interdigitated design19,21,22. Another advantage of the inclined design over
The first mechanism (Extended Data Fig. 1a) is called conduction pumping and the interdigitated one is robustness to minor electrical breakdown events. In the
relies on the formation of heterocharge layers in the proximity of the electrodes21. inclined design, the short-circuit path between electrodes with opposite polarity is
Heterocharge layers are non-equilibrium charged layers that form when the elec- always through the dielectric liquid, so permanent short circuits do not form, as in
tric field exceeds a certain threshold (5–6 V µm−1) and are due to ion generation HASEL (hydraulically amplified self-healing electrostatic) actuators12. In contrast,
not balanced by recombination. The charges in these layers are of opposite sign in the interdigitated design, conductive paths can form on the PDMS substrate
to that of the nearest electrode; thus, they are electrostatically pulled towards that rather than through the liquid, preventing the healing of the device.
electrode, where they discharge. The movement of ions, which drags the neutral A comparison between the inclined 1 and inclined 2 designs shows the scalabil-
liquid molecules and thus generates pumping, is identical at the anode and at the ity of the stretchable pumps both in terms of channel size and electrode spacing.
cathode. As a consequence, to obtain global flow (that is, not simply local recir- By varying the channel height, which in this configuration corresponds to the gap
culation) the electrode surfaces must be angled such that the direction normal to between the electrode pairs (Extended Data Fig. 1a), we change the electric field at a
the electrodes has a non-zero component oriented in the direction of the desired given voltage. As a consequence, to obtain the same pressure response, the inclined
flow. The flow direction is therefore determined by the design of the electrodes 1 pump requires twice the voltage of the inclined 2 pump (Extended Data Fig. 3),
and not by the field polarity. This conduction pumping mechanism consists of an as we would expect, given that the EHD phenomenon depends on the value of the
array of inclined capacitors obtained by overlapping symmetrical electrodes on an electric field. We can also observe a direct proportionality between the number of
inclined channel, as shown in Extended Data Fig. 1a. electrode pairs and the generated pressure.
The second mechanism (Extended Data Fig. 1b) is called charge injection and is Materials and fabrication. The stretchable pumps are composed of two electrode
based on field emission20,22. When the electric field is high enough, electrons can layers that sandwich a channel layer. The PDMS used for the pump body is Dow
overcome the energy barrier and directly tunnel from the cathode surface into the Corning Sylgard 184. The electrode layers are symmetric and are patterned on a
dielectric liquid. The ions (X−) thus formed are accelerated by the electrophoretic 0.4-mm-thick PDMS backing. The electrode material for the C pumps is composed
force until they discharge at the anode. The use of dielectric liquids with highly of carbon particles dispersed in a soft PDMS matrix32 (Silbione LSR 4305), while
electronegative molecules (such as fluorine-based liquids) ensures that the energy for the Ag pumps the electrode is printed using a commercially available stretch-
barrier for field emission to occur at the cathode is lower than at the anode. This able silver ink (Chimet Ag 520 EI) with a laser-engraved Mylar (biaxially oriented
mechanism can create net flow with a planar electrode configuration and a d.c. polyethylene terephthalate) mask. The channel layer consists of a laser-cut PDMS
electric field. The flow direction can be inverted by inverting the polarity of the membrane, whose thickness determines the height of the channel (1.0 mm or
electric field. Extended Data Fig. 1b shows the design of the soft pump based on 0.5 mm in the devices that we developed). The layers are bonded with a silicone
injection pumping, consisting of two overlapping sets of interdigitated electrodes. adhesive film (AR Clear 8932EE, Adhesives Research), which is laminated on the
In both mechanisms, once one has exceeded the electric field threshold needed, channel layer before the laser cutting process. Extended Data Fig. 2 shows the
the pumping pressure ΔP grows with the square of the electric field E and linearly details of the fabrication process. The dielectric liquids used for the stretchable
with the dielectric constant ε of the liquid: ΔP = kpεE2, where kp is a constant pumps are fluorinated solvents: 3M Novec 7100, methoxy-nonafluorobutane
depending on the pump geometry. The generated flow rate Q has a more compli- (C4F9OCH3) for the C pumps, and 3M Fluorinert FC-40 (C10HF22N) for the Ag
cated relation; it generally depends on the electric field squared and on the fourth pumps.
power of the channel size D: Q = kQεE2D4. The direction of the flow is opposite to Characterization experiments. Pressure and flow-rate measurements were
the direction of the electric field for charge injection, whereas it depends only on performed using the pumps in a closed loop with a variable-opening valve to con-
the geometry of the electrodes for conduction pumping. trol the fluidic impedance. The pumps were powered by power supplies based on
There is a great deal of design freedom for the EHD electrode configurations. the Peta-Pico-Voltron33 (https://petapicovoltron.com/) open-source HV supply for
For the interdigitated case, one can reduce the inter-electrode distance g to lower voltages up to 5 kV, and by an EMCO regulated CB101 up to 10 kV. The applied
the drive voltage for a given electric field and simultaneously increase the num- voltage, electrical current, pressure and flow-rate were simultaneously recorded.
ber of electrode pairs (hence pressure) in a given channel length. How the inter- The Ag devices operate stably in air with no special pre-treatment: we routinely
electrode gap influences pressure and flow rate is non-trivial: a smaller gap spacing operated the Ag pumps in laboratory ambient for several hours. For the C pumps,
leads to electric field lines that penetrate less far into the channel, thus dragging however, most characterization experiments were done with the stretchable pumps
ions along a thinner sheath. Increasing the width of the electrodes will proportion- submerged in the same dielectric liquid used for pumping (3M Novec 7100), as
ally increase flow rate. Scaling down further leads to lower voltages but creates a operating in liquid allows long-term testing for the C pumps. PDMS is permeable
flow only very near to the wall, with much higher friction losses. We propose that to, and swells in, Novec 7100; operating in air eventually results in gas bubbles
a gap of the order of the channel thickness is a reasonable starting point. inside the channel. Soaking the device in Novec 7100 temporarily prevented gas
Dielectric fluids for EHD pumping must have low electrical conductivity formation and allowed reliable operation in air for up to 15 min.
(<10−7 S m−1) and high electrical breakdown strength to enable high pumping The thermal regulation and soft robotic actuator experiments were carried out
pressure. Of the different liquids one can consider, Novec 7100 and Fluorinert with C pumps in air after soaking the pump in the dielectric liquid for 10–15 min.
FC40 both have excellent dielectric strength, with nominal breakdown voltages Heart-shaped balloon. The heart-shaped balloon consists of two separate fluidic
of 10–16 kV and >18 kV for 1 mm gaps, respectively. The boiling points of chambers (ventricles). It is manufactured by mould-casting a soft silicone rubber
Novec 7100 and Fluorinert FC40 are 61 °C and 155 °C, making them well-suited (Smooth-on Ecoflex 0030) in a CNC-machined plastic mould and then gluing
for room-temperature operation. Both fluids have very low toxicity, zero ozone this moulded body to a 100-µm-thick membrane made with the same silicone.
depletion potential and no flash point and are non-flammable. Each side of a stretchable pump is connected to one of the two ventricles of the
Four generations of stretchable pumps. We designed and developed four gen- balloon with a small vinyl tube (1.2 mm ID). Before each experiment, the circuit is
erations of stretchable pumps (Extended Data Fig. 3). The circuit of the first pre-filled with dielectric liquid (FC-40), and most of the air is removed. The voltage
generation (‘inclined 1’; see Extended Data Fig. 1a) consists of a set of five inclined is applied to the pump using a battery-driven high-voltage power supply (Extended
capacitors (corresponding to five electrode pairs) separated by a 1 mm gap. Data Fig. 4). Based on the polarity of the applied voltage, the pump moves the
It operates according to EHD conduction pumping principles. The second gener- liquid from the left ventricle to the right one or vice versa (Fig. 1d; Supplementary
ation (‘inclined 2’) is a scaled down version of the first, with half the channel size, Video 2). In this experiment, we used a modified version of the Ag pump, in which
half the electrode gap and 43 inclined capacitors. the gap between the interdigitated electrodes has been reduced from 0.5 mm to
The third generation (C pump) relies on the charge injection mechanism 0.4 mm to increase the electric field for the same applied voltage and comply with
(Extended Data Fig. 1b) and thus presents a different electrode layout: two series the maximum 6 kV output of the battery-driven power supply.
of 17 interdigitated electrodes facing each other (34 electrode pairs). The fourth Thermal regulation on a smart glove. In this experiment, the fluid circulation
generation (Ag pump) has the same geometry as the third one, but the electrode driven by a stretchable pump transfers heat between a hot area and a cold one.
material has been replaced by a commercial silver ink. The reason for this change To a first approximation, the rate of heat transfer H in a fluidic heat exchanger
in materials is the degradation observed in the performance of carbon-based elec- is proportional to the flow-rate Q, according to the equation H = QρcPΔT,
trodes, which is completely solved by using silver particles as a conductive material. where cP = 1,183 J kg−1 K−1 is the specific heat of our working fluid (Novec
The inclined design presents lower pumping performance than the interdig- 7100), ρ = 1,510 kg m−3 its density and ΔT the temperature difference between
itated design for the same applied voltage, as shown in Extended Data Fig. 3. the inlet and the outlet of the exchanger. The rate of heat transfer H, measured
Additionally, the interdigitated design allows pumping in either direction, in watts, represents the amount of thermal power that can be transported by the
based on the polarity of the applied voltage, whereas the inclined design always fluid.

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 Letter RESEARCH

The hot area in our set-up is represented by a flexible joule heater (MINCO 41. Ahn, S.-H. & Kim, Y.-K. Fabrication and experiment of a planar micro ion drag
polyimide thermofoil heater) and the cold one by a serpentine tube sewn into a pump. Sens. Actuators A 70, 1–5 (1998).
42. Chen, L., Wang, H., Ma, J., Wang, C. & Guan, Y. Fabrication and characterization
textile glove, where the heat can be dissipated by natural air convection. The closed- of a multi-stage electroosmotic pump for liquid delivery. Sens. Actuators B 104,
loop fluidic circuit is filled with dielectric liquid, and air bubbles are removed 117–123 (2005).
before activating the pump. We apply a constant voltage of 9 V on the heater, 43. Chen, C.-H. & Santiago, J. G. A planar electroosmotic micropump.
leading to a thermal power of 1.2 W. The temperature map is acquired using an J. Microelectromech. Syst. 11, 672–683 (2002).
infrared camera (FLIR A15, 50 mK thermal sensitivity). The emissivity is set to a 44. Zengerle, R., Ulrich, J., Kluge, S., Richter, M. & Richter, A. A bidirectional silicon
micropump. Sens. Actuators A Phys. 50, 81–86 (1995).
constant value of 0.98, given the very similar values of emissivity of all the materials
45. Homsy, A., Linder, V., Lucklum, F. & de Rooij, N. F. Magnetohydrodynamic
involved in the set-up (that is, human skin, elastomers and plastic foils). pumping in nuclear magnetic resonance environments. Sens. Actuators B 123,
Soft robotic actuator. The bending fluidic actuator is manufactured by 636–646 (2007).
mould-casting a soft silicone rubber (Smooth-on Ecoflex 0030) in a 3D printed 46. Ashouri, M., Shafii, M. B. & Moosavi, A. Theoretical and experimental studies
mould8. Pump and actuator are bonded together, fluidically connected and sealed of a magnetically actuated valveless micropump. J. Micromech. Microeng. 27,
using a silicone glue (Wacker Silpuran 4200). The experiment is conducted with 015016 (2016).
47. Tanaka, Y., Noguchi, Y., Yalikun, Y. & Kamamichi, N. Earthworm muscle
the soft actuator lying on a horizontal plane lubricated with Novec 7100 to prevent driven bio-micropump. Sens. Actuators B 242, 1186–1192 (2017).
stiction. Before starting the experiment, the actuator is filled with dielectric liquid 48. Van de Pol, F. C. M., Van Lintel, H. T. G., Elwenspoek, M. & Fluitman, J. H. J. A
using the tube in its back. Air bubbles are evacuated using gravity. The actuator thermopneumatic micropump based on micro-engineering techniques.
reservoir is filled with dielectric liquid, and the actuator takes a curved shape at Sens. Actuators A 21, 198–202 (1990).
rest owing to the liquid pressure. This pressure causes the pump channel to expand 49. Sim, W. Y., Yoon, H. J., Jeong, O. C. & Yang, S. S. A phase-change type
micropump with aluminum flap valves. J. Micromech. Microeng. 13, 286–294
slightly, resulting in slightly higher pump working voltages compared with the (2003).
uninflated case. The bending is recorded with a camera and the angle computed 50. Jung, J.-Y. & Kwak, H.-Y. Fabrication and testing of bubble powered
using Kinovea software for image analysis. micropumps using embedded microheater. Microfluid. Nanofluidics 3,
Concise overview of miniature pump performance. Extended Data Table 1 com- 161–169 (2007).
pares the performance of pumps34–56 based on a broad range of physical principles, 51. Shaegh, S. A. M. et al. Plug-and-play microvalve and micropump for rapid
integration with microfluidic chips. Microfluid. Nanofluidics 19, 557–564
as reviewed in refs 20,30,31. Some numbers (overall pump volume in particular) are (2015).
approximate because authors include different elements when reporting pump 52. Jeong, O. C., Park, S. W., Yang, S. S. & Pak, J. J. Fabrication of a peristaltic PDMS
dimensions, in part owing to the large range of possible actuation methods. Our micropump. Sens. Actuators A 123–124, 453–458 (2005).
stretchable pump surpasses these previously reported soft pumps in both specific 53. Jahanshahi, A., Axisa, F. & Vanfleteren, J. Fabrication of an implantable
pressure and specific flow rate. Amongst published soft pumps, combustion-driven stretchable electro-osmosis pump. In Microfluidics, BioMEMS, and Medical
pumps provide the highest absolute pressure and flow rates, but require a source of Microsystems IX 7929, 79290R (International Society for Optics and Photonics,
2011).
combustible gas, an ignition system and a design that can tolerate the high combus- 54. Stergiopulos, C., Vogt, D., Tolley, M. & Wehner, M. A soft combustion-driven
tion temperatures and pressure bursts. Those pumps can be challenging to regulate pump for soft robots. Proc. ASME 2014 Conference on Smart Materials,
and are mostly adapted to generate explosive motion, such as for jumping robots. Adaptive Structures and Intelligent Systems SMASIS2014, 1–6 (2014).
Electroosmotic pumps are in principle well-suited for fabrication in a stretcha- 55. Mac Murray, B. C. et al. Poroelastic foams for simple fabrication of complex
ble format given their simple structure. The one reported stretchable device53 is soft robots. Adv. Mater. 27, 6334–6340 (2015).
56. Loepfe, M., Schumacher, C. M. & Stark, W. J. Design, performance and
fabricated with extremely small micromachined channels, leading to low flow rates, reinforcement of bearing-free soft silicone combustion-driven pumps. Ind. Eng.
far too small for soft robotics or wearable applications. Pneumatic actuation allows Chem. Res. 53, 12519–12526 (2014).
for ready use of soft materials, but the need for an external source of compressed
air is impractical for the applications we report here. Acknowledgements We thank H. Shigemune for discussions about EHD,
M. Imboden for assistance with the thermal regulation experiments and
O. Gudozhnik for developing the 5 kV and 6 kV supplies. We acknowledge
Data availability financial support from JSPS KAKENHI under grants 16H04306, 18H05473
All data are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request. and 19H05328; MEXT/JSPS under Leading Initiative for Excellent Young
Researchers; Swiss National Science Foundation through NCCR Robotics;
32. Rosset, S., Araromi, O. A., Schlatter, S. & Shea, H. R. Fabrication process of Japanese TOBITATE! Young Ambassador Program; Hasler Foundation Cyber-
silicone-based dielectric elastomer actuators. J. Vis. Exp. 108, 53423 (2016). Human Systems programme; and the BioRobotics Institute of Scuola Superiore
33. Schlatter, S., Illenberger, P. & Rosset, S. Peta-pico-Voltron: an open-source high Sant’Anna, Pisa for funding V.C.’s initial stay at EPFL in 2016.
voltage power supply. HardwareX 4, e00039 (2018).
34. MGD 1000S specification. Available at https://www.micropumps.co.uk/ Author contributions V.C., J.S., S.M., D.F. and H.S. conceived the project. V.C. and
TCSMGD1000range.htm J.S. designed and characterized the devices. V.C., J.S. and Y.K. fabricated the
35. McMaster-Carr single tank portable air compressor specification. Available at: devices. V.C. and H.S. analysed the data. S.M., H.S. and D.F. contributed to data
https://www.mcmaster.com/9965k62 interpretation. V.C., J.S. and H.S. wrote the paper. All authors provided feedback
36. Olsson, A., Enoksson, P., Stemme, G. & Stemme, E. Micromachined flat-walled and agree with the final version of the manuscript.
valveless diffuser pumps. J. Microelectromech. Syst. 6, 161–166 (1997).
37. Jang, L.-S. et al. A stand-alone peristaltic micropump based on piezoelectric Competing interests V.C., J.S., S.M., D.F. and H.S declare financial interest in
actuation. Biomed. Microdevices 9, 185–194 (2007). form of a patent application. Y.K. declares no competing interests.
38. Lei, K. F. et al. A vortex pump-based optically-transparent microfluidic platform
for biotech and medical applications. Proc. Inst. Mech. Eng. H 221, 129–141 Additional information
(2007). Supplementary information is available for this paper at https://doi.org/
39. Kawun, P., Leahy, S. & Lai, Y. A thin PDMS nozzle/diffuser micropump for 10.1038/s41586-019-1479-6.
biomedical applications. Sens. Actuators A 249, 149–154 (2016). Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to V.C. or H.S.
40. Richter, A., Plettner, A., Hofmann, K. A. & Sandmaier, H. A micromachined Reprints and permissions information is available at http://www.nature.com/
electrohydrodynamic (EHD) pump. Sens. Actuators A 29, 159–168 (1991). reprints.

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 RESEARCH Letter

a g g g V
+++++
+++++

Net Flow Heterocharge

layers

-----
-----

b
V

----- +++++ ----- +++++

e- e- e- e-
x- x x- x
x- x-

x Net Flow x
x- x-
x- x x- x
e- - - - - - +++++ e- e- - - - - - +++++ e-

g g g 2g

Extended Data Fig. 1 | The two different electrode geometries and

corresponding electrohydrodynamic (EHD) mechanisms used in this
work. a, Conduction pumping, with inclined capacitors. Heterocharge
layers form near the electrodes. These layers are characterized by a higher
concentration of ions of opposite polarity with respect to the nearest
electrode. As a consequence, these ions are attracted to the nearest
electrode, where they discharge. The inclined geometry of the capacitors
allows net flow thanks to the in-flow component of the electric field near
to the electrode surface. b, Charge injection, with interdigitated electrodes.
When the electric field is high enough to overcome the energy barrier,
field emission takes place, with electrons tunnelling from the cathode into
the dielectric liquid. The generated ions are accelerated by the electric field
until they discharge at the anode, transferring momentum to neutral liquid
molecules along the way.

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 Letter RESEARCH

a b
i i
PET film PDMS Ag electrode

CB electrode Adhesive film

ii ii

iii iii

iv
iv

v
vi

vii

Extended Data Fig. 2 | Fabrication process for stretchable pumps adhesive film. vi, The top electrode layer, with two laser-cut holes for
using the interdigitated design. a, Fabrication process for the C pump. fluidic connection, is bonded on the top of the channel layer. vii, The PET
i, The fabrication of the electrode layers starts by blade-casting a carbon- supports are removed, and the C stretchable pump, shown in the bottom
based electrode membrane with a thickness of 30 μm on a poly(ethylene photo, is ready to use. b, Fabrication process for the Ag pump. i, The
terephthalate) (PET) support, which is then cured at 80 °C for 2 h. ii, A fabrication starts by blade-casting and curing (80 °C, 1 h) a 400 μm PDMS
400 μm PDMS membrane is cast on the top of the electrode and cured membrane. ii, On the PDMS, a silver-based stretchable ink is printed
at 80 °C for 1 h. iii, The sample is turned over to expose the electrode through a 23-μm-thick Mylar mask and cured at 80 °C for 3 h. iii, After
membrane, which is then processed (iv) by laser engraving to define removal of the mask, the bottom electrode layer is bonded to the 500-μm-
the interdigitated pattern. This process allows the manufacturing of thick channel layer with a silicone adhesive film. iv, The top electrode
many samples in parallel, up to 24 samples with our equipment at EPFL- layer, with two laser-cut holes for fluidic connection, is bonded on the
LMTS. The central photo shows eight sets of interdigitated electrodes at top of the channel layer. v, The PET supports are removed, and the Ag
this stage. v, The channel layer, consisting of a 500-μm-thick laser-cut stretchable pump is ready to use.
PDMS membrane, is bonded to the bottom electrode layer by a silicone

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 RESEARCH Letter

Extended Data Fig. 3 | Four generations of stretchable pumps plotting interdigitated electrodes rather than inclined capacitors. The C version has
generated pressure vs. applied voltage. The ‘inclined 1’ and ‘inclined laser-engraved carbon-silicone composite electrodes and uses 3M Novec
2’ generations have inclined capacitors as the electrode configuration. 7100 as the dielectric fluid. The Ag version has mask-printed silver-based
Inclined 2 is a scaled version of inclined 1, with half the channel size, half electrodes and uses 3M Fluorinert FC-40 as the dielectric fluid. The Ag
the gap between opposite electrodes and many more electrode pairs devices can sustain higher fields than the C devices, thanks to the
(43 rather than 5). The interdigitated generations have the same different dielectric liquid and to the different electrode fabrication
channel size and gap between opposite electrodes as inclined 2 but use method.

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 Letter RESEARCH

Extended Data Fig. 4 | A 5 kV programmable power supply weighing a 6 kV, 20 g version. For a given voltage, pump performance is the same
16 g, including Li-ion battery. This custom-made power supply is based when driven by these low-mass power supplies or by larger laboratory
on an EMCO d.c.–d.c. converter from XP-power (https://www.xppower. power supplies, because the current draw from the pumps is far less than
com/Product/A-Series) and includes a microcontroller to programme the the maximum current that the d.c.–d.c. converter can supply.
output. Dimensions are 5 cm × 4 cm × 0.8 cm. In this work, we also used

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 RESEARCH Letter

Extended Data Fig. 5 | Three stretchable pumps connected in series. The data shown in Fig. 2f were taken using these three pumps connected in series
to increase pressure. Alternatively, pumps could be connected in parallel for higher flow rate. Each pump is 7.5 cm long.

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 Letter RESEARCH

Extended Data Table 1 | Comparison of pump performance

*Volume based on data in paper, photographs or figures. We attempted to include the same key components in each pump for a fair comparison, despite important differences in fabrication methods
and in operating principles.
†
Reference selected from review articles20,30,31. Some numbers differ from the review articles following analysis of the papers.
‡
Channel or chamber dimensions; no data available on full pump.

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