Abstract
Nebulizers of drug delivery are used in the medicine therapy for asthmatic patients in recent years. Although using liquid nebulization mechanism is able to transform the type of medicine becoming liquid to gaseous droplet, it is hard to control the size of gaseous droplet. In general, the size of medicine droplet must be smaller than 5 μm, and can be efficiently absorbed by alveoli of patients. Filtration by a nebulizer nozzle plate, the medicine droplet will be controlled smaller than 5 μm and can be efficiently absorbed by alveoli through inhalation and reach to the purpose of rapid drug-feeding. For portable use, patients desire nebulizers, which have smaller size and lighter weight for easy carrying as well as longer battery working time for long-term use. Because micro-DMFCs have higher energy density than lithium-ion batteries and can directly use methanol fuels to generate electricity for long-term use, they could be used in portable nebulizers. However, external methanol-water mixing tanks and conduits that used for water management of DMFCs are difficult to be miniaturized and integrated into micro-DMFCs. First study theme of this thesis focused on developing a novel fabrication process to fabricate the nebulizer nozzle plate of nebulizer drug-feeding systems by the laser ablation process and electroforming process. Moreover, this study developed different types of electro-deposited alloys for the electroforming of nebulizer nozzle plates. Further, this study developed a piezoelectric actuating system as a nebulizer to generate gaseous droplets, which were filtrated by the nebulizer nozzle plates. This study used a particle size counter to measure sizes of the gaseous droplets, and it verified the performance of the developed nebulizer nozzle plate. Second study theme of this thesis focused on developing a micro direct methanol fuel cell (micro-DMFC), which was composed of an in-fuel cell microfluidic micromixer and DMFC components, for nebulizer use. This study demonstrated the micro-DMFC, with an internal mixing function, which was able to mix methanol fuel and water by the self-vortical micromixer inside itself. Design and testing results of the self-vortical micromixer integrated with the micro-DMFC showed the self-vortical micromixer was able to be operated in the micro-DMFC system.