In this work, a glucose fuel cell was fabricated using microfabrication processes assigned for microelectromechanical systems. The fuel cell was equipped with a microchannel to flow an aqueous solution of glucose. The cell was fabricated on a flexible polyimide substrate, and its porous carbon-coated aluminum (Al) electrodes of 2.8 mm in width and 11 mm in length were formed using photolithography and screen printing techniques. Porous carbon was deposited by screen printing of carbon black ink on the Al electrode surfaces in order to increase the effective electrode surface area and to absorb more enzymes on the electrode surfaces. The microchannel with a depth of 200 μm was fabricated using a hot embossing technique. A maximum power of 0.45 μW at 0.5 V that corresponds to a power density of 1.45 μW/cm 2 was realized by introducing a 200 mM concentrated glucose solution at room temperature.

Micropumps are important components of advanced microfluidic systems. Here, polyimide (PI) as an advantageous structural material for flexible micropumps was focused on. This is because PI has many advantageous properties such as high thermal stability and superior mechanical strength. However, the difficulty in realizing an all-PI micropump lies in fabricating microstructures on PI film surfaces. In this paper, we present a novel all-PI micropump fabricated using hot embossing. The micropump had diffuser/nozzle valves and functioned by vibrating a 2-µm-thick PI diaphragm with alternating air pressures between 0 and 10 kPa at a frequency of 3 Hz. The height and diameter of the PI micropump chamber were 200 µm and 5 mm, respectively. The flow rate of water in the micropump was 34 µl/min. This micropump is suitable for flexible microfluidic systems.

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The transfer printing of Au micropatterns onto a polyimide (PI) film was investigated, and the optimum transfer conditions were obtained. In this study, micropatterns with widths of 25 μm and 75 μm were successfully transferred onto a PI film at a molding temperature of 150 °C for 5 s under a molding pressure of 2.5 MPa. This technique is expected to provide simplified processes in fabricating wiring patterns in microelectromechanical systems.