Microfluidic devices are interesting for chemical, biological, and medical applications. However, their widespread use is hampered by the lack of compact and efficient actuators that push fluid through channels. A promising actuator based on the explosion of a hydrogen–oxygen mixture outperforms other microdrives by orders of magnitude in terms of the force density, has a moderate power consumption and compact size. But the actuator has a relatively low operating frequency of 0.1 Hz. Eliminating secondary explosions increases the frequency up to 1 Hz, and increasing the volume of the working chamber provides additional enhancement to 20 Hz.
Shlepakov et al. (Mon,) studied this question.