Directional pumping of water and oil microdroplets on slippery surface

Transporting water and oil microdroplets is important for applications ranging from water harvesting to biomedical analysis but remains a great challenge. This is due to the amplified contact angle hysteresis and insufficient driving force in the micrometer scale, especially for low-surface energy o...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS 2019-02, Vol.116 (7), p.2482-2487
Main Authors: Jiang, Jieke, Gao, Jun, Zhang, Hengdi, He, Wenqing, Zhang, Jianqiang, Daniel, Dan, Yao, Xi
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Coalescence
Coalescing
Contact angle
Dimethylpolysiloxanes - chemistry
Droplets
Energy
Hydrogels
Lubricants
Menisci
Oil
Oils
Physical Sciences
Proof of Concept Study
Surface energy
Surface Properties
Water
Water drops
Water harvesting
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Summary:Transporting water and oil microdroplets is important for applications ranging from water harvesting to biomedical analysis but remains a great challenge. This is due to the amplified contact angle hysteresis and insufficient driving force in the micrometer scale, especially for low-surface energy oil droplets. Coalescence of neighboring droplets, which releases vast additional surface energy, was often required, but its relatively uncontrollable nature brings uncertainties to the droplet motion, and the methodology is not applicable to single droplets. Here we introduce a strategy based on slippery surface with immobilized lubricant menisci to directionally transport microdroplets. By simply mounting hydrogel dots on slippery surface, the raised menisci remotely pump microdroplets via capillary force with high efficiency, regardless of droplet size or surface energy. By proof-of-concept experiments, we demonstrate that our method allows for highly efficient water droplet collection and highly sensitive biomedical analyte detection.
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.1817172116