Magnetic-actuated "capillary container" for versatile three-dimensional fluid interface manipulation

Yiyuan Zhang; Zhandong Huang; Zheren Cai; Yuqing Ye; Zheng Li; Feifei Qin; Junfeng Xiao; Dongxing Zhang; Qiuquan Guo; Yanlin Song; Jun Yang

doi:10.1126/sciadv.abi7498

Magnetic-actuated "capillary container" for versatile three-dimensional fluid interface manipulation

Sci Adv. 2021 Aug 18;7(34):eabi7498. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abi7498. Print 2021 Aug.

Authors

Yiyuan Zhang¹, Zhandong Huang², Zheren Cai^{3

4}, Yuqing Ye⁵, Zheng Li^{3

4}, Feifei Qin⁶, Junfeng Xiao¹, Dongxing Zhang⁷, Qiuquan Guo⁷, Yanlin Song³, Jun Yang²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario N6A 5B9, Canada.
² Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario N6A 5B9, Canada. huangzhandong@iccas.ac.cn jyang@eng.uwo.ca.
³ Key Laboratory of Green Printing, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences (ICCAS), Beijing Engineering Research Center of Nanomaterials for Green Printing Technology, Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences (BNLMS), Beijing 100190, P. R. China.
⁴ University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, P. R. China.
⁵ School of Biomedical Engineering, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario N6A 5B9, Canada.
⁶ Chair of Building Physics, Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering, ETH Zürich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich), Zürich 8092, Switzerland.
⁷ Shenzhen Institute for Advanced Study, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Shenzhen 518000, P. R. China.

Abstract

Fluid interfaces are omnipresent in nature. Engineering the fluid interface is essential to study interfacial processes for basic research and industrial applications. However, it remains challenging to precisely control the fluid interface because of its fluidity and instability. Here, we proposed a magnetic-actuated "capillary container" to realize three-dimensional (3D) fluid interface creation and programmable dynamic manipulation. By wettability modification, 3D fluid interfaces with predesigned sizes and geometries can be constructed in air, water, and oils. Multiple motion modes were realized by adjusting the container's structure and magnetic field. Besides, we demonstrated its feasibility in various fluids by performing selective fluid collection and chemical reaction manipulations. The container can also be encapsulated with an interfacial gelation reaction. Using this process, diverse free-standing 3D membranes were produced, and the dynamic release of riboflavin (vitamin B₂) was studied. This versatile capillary container will provide a promising platform for open microfluidics, interfacial chemistry, and biomedical engineering.

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