Electrohydrodynamics (EHD) involves the dynamics of electrically charged fluids, which effectively means making fluids move using nothing but electric fields, making it an attractive idea for creating a pump out of. This is the topic of a 2023 paper by [Michael Smith] and colleagues in Science, titled “Fiber pumps for wearable fluidic systems”. The ‘fiber pumps’ as they call the EHD pumps in this study are manufactured by twisting two helical, 80 µm thick copper electrodes around a central mandrel, along with TPU (thermoplastic polyurethane) before applying heat. This creates a tube where the two continuous electrodes are in contact with any fluids inside the tube.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://hackaday.com/2024/06/09/a-compact-electrohydrodynamic-pump-using-copper-and-tpu/