Flow Control for Organ-on-Chip

The Elveflow OB1 is a pressure controller that drives an organ-on-chip, or any microphysiological system (MPS), two ways. It pushes liquid medium from a sealed reservoir to perfuse the tissue, a smooth pulseless flow that responds in about ten milliseconds. And it pushes air, with pressure and vacuum on programmable waveforms, to deform a membrane and apply mechanical strain such as breathing stretch. The same unit can run several compartments at once, and, paired with an Elveflow flow sensor, hold a set flow rate and the wall shear it gives across a long run.

For a defined, stable flow that also stimulates the tissue, pressure-driven control fits an organ-on-chip best. A syringe pump pulses at low flow and stops to refill, so shear-sensitive cells feel the pulses and the perfusion cuts out when it reloads. A peristaltic pump recirculates well for a long run, but its rollers pulse and the pulsation is tied to the flow rate. A rocker platform is simple and keeps cells fed, but it gives bidirectional flow with no shear stress you can set. The Elveflow OB1 delivers a continuous flow from a non-contact pump, drives one to four independent lines, and adds pressure and vacuum for mechanical stimulation. Those independent lines let you run several conditions in parallel and compare them in a single experiment.

Yes. The OB1 is chip-agnostic. It pushes medium into any reservoir and through standard tubing, so it drives a commercial organ-on-chip or your own PDMS device the same way, with any aqueous or biological medium, so it works with whatever chip your model needs.

Yes. The OB1 delivers pressure and vacuum on programmable profiles, so it can deflect a chip membrane to stretch the tissue, or shape a pulsatile flow when the model needs a heartbeat. In an alveoli-on-chip, an OB1 supplied a sinusoidal pneumatic pressure, a 0.25 Hz breathing cycle, that deflected the membrane into roughly 10% cyclic stretch on the alveolar epithelium. You program the waveform, a sine, a ramp, a series of pulses, or upload your own custom profile, and the fast response reproduces it accurately.

Yes. One OB1 drives one to four independent lines from a single interface, so a two-sided model, a blood side and a tissue side, or a lumen and a basal compartment, gets its own flow on each side, in the same or opposite directions. In a proximal-tubule-on-chip, an OB1 pushed medium in opposite directions along the tubule’s two sides, which polarised its drug transporters. With an Elveflow MUX distribution valve, you can also send a series of solutions through one compartment in turn, a drug, a wash, a stain, on its own. Each line holds its own rate, so the compartments stay independent through the run.

You set shear through the flow rate. The flow rate and your chip geometry give the wall shear stress, which you can work out from the two, and a shear-stress calculator helps. To hold it, add an Elveflow flow sensor (MFS or BFS): the OB1 reads the actual flow rate and adjusts pressure to hold it at your setpoint, a feedback loop in the ESI software. The shear stays constant across a long dynamic culture, so a barrier keeps its integrity even as tubing warms or a reservoir empties.

Yes. A recirculation loop lets the OB1 reuse conditioned medium instead of pushing fresh medium to waste, so a multi-day run doesn’t burn through liters, and the factors your tissue secretes stay in the loop. An Elveflow MUX recirculation valve is one way to build it. There are a few configurations depending on your chip and volumes, and our team can help you pick one.

Yes. Because one OB1 can pressurise many lines at once, it can perfuse several connected chips together, so one tissue can be linked to another through shared medium. That lets you study how one tissue’s output affects the next, or scale a single condition across many chips for more replicates in one experiment, where one syringe pump gives you one line.

A few safeguards make a long run safe to leave alone. You can cap the volume the OB1 injects, so it stops before a reservoir empties instead of pushing air into the chip. An Elveflow bubble remover placed upstream pulls gas out of the line before it reaches the tissue, where a stray bubble can shear a monolayer loose or dry it out, and an inline bubble detector can flag air in the line. Air pressure does the pushing, so the only wetted parts are the tubing and reservoir you control, autoclavable adapters included.

Yes. You program the flow or stretch profile and it runs unattended, so you can leave a long perfusion, or a cyclic stretch, to run on its own. TTL triggers (0/5 V) let the OB1 start a microscope acquisition at a chosen point in the flow, or step through a sequence of conditions on its own. For custom automation, the SDK covers Python, MATLAB, LabVIEW and C++, and the software logs the flow data to CSV as it runs.

An organ-on-chip is only useful as a model if another lab can repeat it, and hand-set or drifting flow is a common source of run-to-run variation. A programmed, sensor-held flow rate takes that variable out, since the same profile repeats identically each time. That reproducibility matters more as non-animal methods gain ground, with the FDA Modernization Act and its roadmap to reduce animal testing, where a standardizable flow setup helps organ-on-chip data count.

Contact us through the form and tell us your model, the chip you use, and the flow or mechanical profile you need. We’ll help you match the OB1 configuration, sensors and accessories to your organ-on-chip, and answer setup questions before you buy.