期刊名称:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
印刷版ISSN:0027-8424
电子版ISSN:1091-6490
出版年度:2021
卷号:118
期号:46
DOI:10.1073/pnas.2111291118
语种:English
出版社:The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要:Significance
A set of magnetically responsive, soft hairs, which form a soft magnetic carpet, can be infused with a liquid to achieve switchable wetting. Applying a pattern of magnetic field results in a reconfigurable wetting pattern on the soft magnetic carpet. Combining this switchable wetting with a travelling magnetic field wave can allow us to spatially manipulate droplets. The efficiency of the droplet manipulation depends on the size and the contact angle of the droplet, which allows a pathway to sort and separate different droplets. Temporal and spatial control over multiple droplets allows us to conduct droplet reactions, which has a potential to be used for automated analytical testing and screening.
The ability to regulate interfacial and wetting properties is highly demanded in anti-icing, anti-biofouling, and medical and energy applications. Recent work on liquid-infused systems achieved switching wetting properties, which allow us to turn between slip and pin states. However, patterning the wetting of surfaces in a dynamic fashion still remains a challenge. In this work, we use programmable wetting to activate and propel droplets over large distances. We achieve this with liquid-infused soft magnetic carpets (SMCs) that consist of pillars that are responsive to external magnetic stimuli. Liquid-infused SMCs, which are sticky for a water droplet, become slippery upon application of a magnetic field. Application of a patterned magnetic field results in a patterned wetting on the SMC. A traveling magnetic field wave translates the patterned wetting on the substrate, which allows droplet manipulation. The droplet speed increases with an increased contact angle and with the droplet size, which offers a potential method to sort and separate droplets with respect to their contact angle or size. Furthermore, programmable control of the droplet allows us to conduct reactions by combining droplets loaded with reagents. Such an ability of conducting small-scale reactions on SMCs has the potential to be used for automated analytical testing, diagnostics, and screening, with a potential to reduce the chemical waste.
关键词:liquid-infused surface; droplet manipulation; magnetic fields; soft materials; soft actuators