Professor Anderson H.C. Shum of the Department of Mechanical Engineering and his Microfluidics and Soft Matter Team worked on the research titled “A droplet robotic system enabled by electret-induced polarization on droplet”. The research was recently published by Nature Communications on July 23, 2024
Details of the publication:
A droplet robotic system enabled by electret-induced polarization on droplet
Ruotong Zhang, Chengzhi Zhang, Xiaoxue Fan, Christina C. K. Au Yeung, Huiyanchen Li, Haisong Lin & Ho Cheung Shum
Article in Nature Communications
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-50520-9
Abstract
Robotics for scientific research are evolving from grasping macro-scale solid materials to directly actuating micro-scale liquid samples. However, current liquid actuation mechanisms often restrict operable liquid types or compromise the activity of biochemical samples by introducing interfering mediums. Here, we propose a robotic liquid handling system enabled by a novel droplet actuation mechanism, termed electret-induced polarization on droplet (EPD). EPD enables all-liquid actuation in principle and experimentally exhibits generality for actuating various inorganic/organic liquids with relative permittivity ranging from 2.25 to 84.2 and volume from 500 nL to 1 mL. Moreover, EPD is capable of actuating various biochemical samples without compromising their activities, including various body fluids, living cells, and proteins. A robotic system is also coupled with the EPD mechanism to enable full automation. EPD’s high adaptability with liquid types and biochemical samples thus promotes the automation of liquid-based scientific experiments across multiple disciplines.