International Journal of Extreme Manufacturing, Volume. 6, Issue 3, 35002(2024)

Triboelectric ‘electrostatic tweezers’ for manipulating droplets on lubricated slippery surfaces prepared by femtosecond laser processing

Jiale Yong... Xinlei Li, Youdi Hu, Yubin Peng, Zilong Cheng, Tianyu Xu, Chaowei Wang* and Dong Wu |Show fewer author(s)
Author Affiliations
  • CAS Key Laboratory of Mechanical Behavior and Design of Materials, Department of Precision Machinery and Precision Instrumentation, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230027,People’s Republic of China
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    The use of ‘Electrostatic tweezers’ is a promising tool for droplet manipulation, but it faces many limitations in manipulating droplets on superhydrophobic surfaces. Here, we achieve noncontact and multifunctional droplet manipulation on Nepenthes-inspired lubricated slippery surfaces via triboelectric electrostatic tweezers (TETs). The TET manipulation of droplets on a slippery surface has many advantages over electrostatic droplet manipulation on a superhydrophobic surface. The electrostatic field induces the redistribution of the charges inside the neutral droplet, which causes the triboelectric charged rod to drive the droplet to move forward under the electrostatic force. Positively or negatively charged droplets can also be driven by TET based on electrostatic attraction and repulsion. TET enables us to manipulate droplets under diverse conditions, including anti-gravity climb, suspended droplets, corrosive liquids, low-surface-tension liquids (e.g. ethanol with a surface tension of 22.3 mN·m?1), different droplet volumes (from 100 nl to 0.5 ml), passing through narrow slits, sliding over damaged areas, on various solid substrates, and even droplets in an enclosed system. Various droplet-related applications, such as motion guidance, motion switching, droplet-based microreactions, surface cleaning, surface defogging, liquid sorting, and cell labeling, can be easily achieved with TETs.

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    Jiale Yong, Xinlei Li, Youdi Hu, Yubin Peng, Zilong Cheng, Tianyu Xu, Chaowei Wang, Dong Wu. Triboelectric ‘electrostatic tweezers’ for manipulating droplets on lubricated slippery surfaces prepared by femtosecond laser processing[J]. International Journal of Extreme Manufacturing, 2024, 6(3): 35002

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    Paper Information

    Received: Oct. 6, 2023

    Accepted: --

    Published Online: Sep. 11, 2024

    The Author Email: Wang Chaowei (chaoweiw@ustc.edu.cn)

    DOI:10.1088/2631-7990/ad2cdf

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