Triboelectric wetting for continuous droplet transport

Wanghuai Xu; Yuankai Jin; Wanbo Li; Yuxin Song; Shouwei Gao; Baoping Zhang; Lili Wang; Miaomiao Cui; Xiantong Yan; Zuankai Wang

doi:10.1126/sciadv.ade2085

Triboelectric wetting for continuous droplet transport

Research output: Journal Publications and Reviews (RGC: 21, 22, 62) › 21_Publication in refereed journal › peer-review

Overview

6 Scopus Citations

Scopus Metrics

View graph of relations

Author(s)

Wanbo Li
Baoping Zhang
Miaomiao Cui
Xiantong Yan
Zuankai Wang

Related Research Unit(s)

Department of Mechanical Engineering

Detail(s)

Original language	English
Article number	eade2085
Journal / Publication	Science Advances
Volume	8
Issue number	51
Online published	21 Dec 2022
Publication status	Published - 23 Dec 2022

Link(s)

DOI	DOI https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.ade2085 Final Published version
	Check@CityULib
Attachment(s)	Documents 129830485.pdf Final Published version, 1 MB, PDF Publisher's Copyright Statement This full text is made available under CC-BY-NC 4.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Link to Scopus	https://www.scopus.com/record/display.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85144542986&origin=recordpage
Permanent Link	https://scholars.cityu.edu.hk/en/publications/publication(799568e7-8fee-4723-8dbf-28d8053d4c2d).html

Abstract

Manipulating liquid is of great significance in fields from life sciences to industrial applications. Owing to its advantages in manipulating liquids with high precision and flexibility, electrowetting on dielectric (EWOD) has been widely used in various applications. Despite this, its efficient operation generally needs electrode arrays and sophisticated circuit control. Here, we develop a largely unexplored triboelectric wetting (TEW) phenomenon that can directly exploit the triboelectric charges to achieve the programmed and precise water droplet control. This key feature lies in the rational design of a chemical molecular layer that can generate and store triboelectric charges through agile triboelectrification. The TEW eliminates the requirement of the electric circuit design and additional source input and allows for manipulating liquids of various compositions, volumes, and arrays on various substrates in a controllable manner. This previously unexplored wetting mechanism and control strategy will find diverse applications ranging from controllable chemical reactions to surface defogging.