CAS Key Laboratory of Bio-inspired Materials and Interfacial Sciences, Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, P. R. China.
Key Laboratory of Bio-inspired Smart Interfacial Science and Technology of Ministry of Education, School of Chemistry, Beijing Advanced Innovation Centre for Biomedical Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing, 100191, P. R. China.
Soft Matter. 2020 Oct 21;16(40):9176-9182. doi: 10.1039/d0sm01073a.
Water droplets are expected to be employed as animated soft matter to mimic the behaviours of both nonliving objects and small living organisms. Local water droplet motion has attracted considerable interest and has expanded into various application areas because of its close relationship with processes associated with life. However, few approaches have been capable of independently manipulating local droplet motion without loss on a substrate due to the difficulty in shaping and focusing the motion route. Here, we demonstrate a non-contact electrostatic-powered local water motion strategy. The gradient of electrostatic charges in space guides the local drop motion without liquid loss in a controlled motion path. The local droplet motion on surfaces with varied wettabilities is discussed and compared. A unipolar electrostatic field is theoretically simulated. This work can introduce a finger-directed surface charge pattern and local droplet motion as a new variable in many droplet robot schemes and inspire next-generation liquid devices.
预计水滴将被用作动画软物质，以模拟无生命物体和小型生物体的行为。由于局部水滴运动与生命过程密切相关，因此其引起了人们的极大兴趣，并扩展到了各个应用领域。然而，由于难以塑造和聚焦运动路径，很少有方法能够在不损失基底的情况下独立地操纵局部液滴运动。在这里，我们展示了一种非接触静电驱动的局部水动力策略。空间中静电电荷的梯度引导局部液滴在受控的运动路径中运动，而不会有液体损失。讨论并比较了在具有不同润湿性的表面上的局部液滴运动。理论上模拟了单极静电场。这项工作可以将手指指向的表面电荷模式和局部液滴运动作为许多液滴机器人方案中的一个新变量，并为下一代液体设备提供灵感。
