School of Science and Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen518172, China.
Shenzhen Institute of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics for Society (AIRS), Shenzhen518129, China.
ACS Nano. 2022 Oct 25;16(10):16281-16291. doi: 10.1021/acsnano.2c05281. Epub 2022 Oct 5.
Sensing of key parameters in fluidic environments has attracted extensive attention because the physical features of body fluids could be used for point-of-care disease diagnosis. Although various sensing methods have been investigated, effective sensing strategies of microenvironments remains a major challenge. In this paper, we propose an approach that can realize sensing of fluidic viscosity and ionic strength using microswarms formed by simple colloidal nanoparticles. The influences of fluidic ionic strength and viscosity on two swarm behaviors are analyzed (i.e., the spreading of circular vortex-like swarms and the elongation of elliptical swarms). The data models for quantifying the fluidic viscosity and ionic strength are obtained from experiments, and the fluidic features can be sensed successfully using the swarm behaviors. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the microswarms have the capability of passing through tortuous and narrow microchannels for sensing. Continuous sensing of different fluidic environments using swarms is also realized. Finally, the sensing of viscosity and ionic strength of porcine whole blood is presented, which also validates the feasibility of the sensing strategy.
在流体环境中感应关键参数引起了广泛关注,因为体液的物理特性可用于即时疾病诊断。尽管已经研究了各种传感方法,但微环境的有效传感策略仍然是一个主要挑战。在本文中,我们提出了一种使用由简单胶体纳米粒子形成的微群来实现对流体粘度和离子强度的感应的方法。分析了流体离子强度和粘度对两种群行为(即圆形涡旋状群的扩展和椭圆形群的伸长)的影响。从实验中获得了用于量化流体粘度和离子强度的数据模型,并成功地使用群行为感测到了流体特性。此外,我们证明了微群具有通过曲折和狭窄的微通道进行感测的能力。还实现了使用群对不同流体环境的连续感测。最后,展示了对猪全血的粘度和离子强度的感测,这也验证了传感策略的可行性。