posted on 2018-09-28, 00:00authored byXiangyu Fu, Yage Zhang, Hao Yuan, Bernard P. Binks, Ho Cheung Shum
Motivated by the great potential
of droplet microreactors for chemical
and biological applications, a general and robust method utilizing
an electric field is developed for sustained, directional and two-dimensional
manipulation of nonwetting droplets (termed “liquid marbles”).
With the understanding of the mechanism of actuation, this method
allows individual liquid marbles to be actuated and coalesced on demand
by fine-tuning the driving voltage. Moreover, in our system, cross-contamination
between marbles during manipulation is avoided as confirmed by the
absence of any trace DNA after amplification using a loop-mediated
isothermal amplification reaction.