Ion Pumps

Acreo is working on manufacturing techniques for the ion pumps developed within the OBOE project. The electrophoretic driven ion pump can deliver ions/molecules with spatial and temporal control without transport of liquid. By applying a potential between the electrodes of the ion pump the amount of transported ions can be controlled, therefore they can be used as excellent translators between electronic and biological systems. The following ions and molecules have been transported: H+, Na+, K+, Ca2+, Acetylcholine, Glutamate, Aspartate, and GABA.  The ion pumps can be made in different form factors, planar devices intended for in vitro applications and a pipette shaped device that can be used in both in vivo and in vitro applications. The planar devices can be manufactured using either regular clean room techniques in order to achieve small feature size or common printing techniques for large scale production but with relaxed feature size. The manufacturing technique for the pipette shaped ion pump (OBOETTE) is currently under development.

The left image shows the OBOETTE ion pump for in vivo or in vitro experiments and the right image shows screen printed ion pumps for in vitro experiments.