Issue 23, 2022

Liquid metal droplet motion transferred from an alkaline solution by a robot arm

Abstract

The excellent motion performance of gallium-based liquid metals (LMs) upon the application of a modest electric field has provided a new opportunity for the development of autonomous soft robots. However, the locomotion of LMs often appears in an alkaline solution, which hampers the application under other different conditions. In this work, a novel robot arm is designed to transfer the motion of the LM from an alkaline solution in a synchronous drive mode. The liquid metal droplet (LMD) at the bottom of the robot arm is actuated using a DC voltage to provide the driving force for the system. By introducing an end effector at the center of the robot arm, the synchronous motion of the system is replicated and can be applied to different situations. The theoretical understanding of continuous electrowetting (CEW) at the LM interface is explained, and then the motion performance of the robot arm against the function of the applied voltage and driving direction is investigated. Moreover, several applications using this robot arm, such as pattern drawing, cargo transportation, and drug concentration detection, are demonstrated. The presented robot arm has the potential to observably expand the application fields of the LM.

Graphical abstract: Liquid metal droplet motion transferred from an alkaline solution by a robot arm

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
31 Jul 2022
Accepted
27 Oct 2022
First published
27 Oct 2022

Lab Chip, 2022,22, 4621-4631

Liquid metal droplet motion transferred from an alkaline solution by a robot arm

Y. Tao, C. Shi, F. Han, R. Yang, R. Xue, Z. Ge, W. Guo, W. Liu and Y. Ren, Lab Chip, 2022, 22, 4621 DOI: 10.1039/D2LC00712F

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements