Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 118, Issue 46, Pages -Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2111291118
Keywords
liquid-infused surface; droplet manipulation; magnetic fields; soft materials; soft actuators
Categories
Funding
- Swiss National Science Foundation through the National Centre of Competence in Research Bio-Inspired Materials [51NF40_182881]
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This study demonstrates the programmable wetting properties of liquid-infused soft magnetic carpets, allowing for manipulation of droplet motion on surfaces. The technology shows potential for applications in sorting, reactions, 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.
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