Hanging droplets from liquid surfaces
Abstract
Heavier objects usually sink in a less dense fluid. Water-walking anthropods and biomimetic water-walking robots harness surface tension in order to overcome this tendency, floating on top of liquids. By hanging a coacervate-encased droplet of a denser aqueous dextran solution from the surface of an aqueous solution of poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG), we harness the binding of dense droplets to interfaces by surface tension to build two-dimensional ensembles of structurally complex droplets. Applications ranging from reaction vessels with selective transport to motors and robotics are enabled by our findings.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Mar 27, 2020
- Source ID
- 10.1073/pnas.1922045117
Entities
People
- Brett A. Helms
- Ganhua Xie
- Ho C Shum
- Joe Forth
- Paul Ashby
- Shipei Zhu
- Thomas Paul Russell
Organizations
- Army Research Office
- Beijing University of Chemical Technology
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
- Office of Basic Energy Sciences
- Tohoku University
- University College London
- University of Hong Kong
- University of Massachusetts