TY - JOUR
T1 - Engineering Micromotors with Droplet Microfluidics
AU - Zhou, Chunmei
AU - Zhu, Pingan
AU - Tian, Ye
AU - Xu, Min
AU - Wang, Liqiu
N1 - Funding Information:
The financial support from the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong (CRF C1018-17G, GRF 17210319, 17204718, 17237316, 17211115, and 17207914) and the University of Hong Kong (URC 201511159108, 201411159074, and 201311159187) is gratefully acknowledged. This work was also supported in part by the Zhejiang Provincial, Hangzhou Municipal, and Lin’an County Governments.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 American Chemical Society.
PY - 2019/6/25
Y1 - 2019/6/25
N2 - Micromotors have promising potential in applications ranging from environmental remediation to targeted drug delivery and noninvasive microsurgery. However, there are inadequacies in the fabrication of artificial micromotors to improve the design of structure and composition for motion performance and multifunctionality. Here, we present a microfluidic fiber-confined approach to creating droplet-templated micromotors with precisely engineered anisotropies in 3D structures and material compositions. The shape anisotropy comes from controllable deformation in droplet templates, and material anisotropy originates from versatile emulsion templates. Containing Pt and magnetic nanoparticles (NPs), micromotors are endowed with both catalytic propulsion and magnetic guidance, which are capable of performing tasks of precise catching, skillful delivering, and on-demand releasing of cargos. Droplet microfluidics allows us to systematically and independently vary the shape and size of micromotors and the distribution and content of NPs for the study of their influences on motors mobility and improve the design. Our results are useful for fabricating micromotors with well-controlled morphology and composition that is beneficial to designing sophisticated microrobotic systems for real-world applications.
AB - Micromotors have promising potential in applications ranging from environmental remediation to targeted drug delivery and noninvasive microsurgery. However, there are inadequacies in the fabrication of artificial micromotors to improve the design of structure and composition for motion performance and multifunctionality. Here, we present a microfluidic fiber-confined approach to creating droplet-templated micromotors with precisely engineered anisotropies in 3D structures and material compositions. The shape anisotropy comes from controllable deformation in droplet templates, and material anisotropy originates from versatile emulsion templates. Containing Pt and magnetic nanoparticles (NPs), micromotors are endowed with both catalytic propulsion and magnetic guidance, which are capable of performing tasks of precise catching, skillful delivering, and on-demand releasing of cargos. Droplet microfluidics allows us to systematically and independently vary the shape and size of micromotors and the distribution and content of NPs for the study of their influences on motors mobility and improve the design. Our results are useful for fabricating micromotors with well-controlled morphology and composition that is beneficial to designing sophisticated microrobotic systems for real-world applications.
KW - anisotropic microparticles
KW - droplet microfluidics
KW - microfiber-confined fabrication
KW - micromotors
KW - self-assembly
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85068520416&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1021/acsnano.9b00731
DO - 10.1021/acsnano.9b00731
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 31091410
AN - SCOPUS:85068520416
SN - 1936-0851
VL - 13
SP - 6319
EP - 6329
JO - ACS Nano
JF - ACS Nano
IS - 6
ER -