Controllable high-performance liquid marble micromixer

Lab Chip. 2022 Apr 12;22(8):1508-1518. doi: 10.1039/d2lc00017b.

Abstract

A liquid marble is a liquid droplet coated with a shell of microparticles. Liquid marbles have served as a unique microreactor for chemical reactions and cell culture. Mixing is an essential task for liquid marbles as a microreactor. However, the potential of liquid marble-based microreactors is significantly limited due to the lack of effective mixing strategies. Most mixing strategies used manual and contact-based actuation schemes. This paper reports the development of a manipulation scheme that induces fluid motion into a liquid marble, leading to enhanced mixing. By inducing rotation on a horizontal axis, we significantly increased the mixing rate by 27.6 times compared to a non-actuated liquid marble and reduced the reaction time by more than 10 times. The proposed method provides a simple, continuous, precise, and controllable high-performance mixing strategy on a liquid marble platform.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Calcium Carbonate*

Substances

  • Calcium Carbonate