Water droplet manipulation by tunable wetting on smart polymer at ultra-low voltages

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Abstract

In this paper, we report experimental results and analyses on the controlled manipulation of liquid droplets using local reduction and oxidation (redox) processes of conjugated polymers of dodecylbenzenesulfonate doped polypyrrole (PPy(DBS)). The electrochemically tunable wetting property of PPy(DBS) permitted the manipulation of an organic droplet of dichloromethane (DCM) at very low voltages (<0.6V). Our experimental results illustrate that, upon the reduction of PPy(DBS), the surface tension gradient across the droplet contact line induced Marangoni stress and caused the deformation of droplets even at low voltages. We envision that the electrochemical redox process on smart polymers demonstrated in this work can open a new door to a low voltage manipulation of liquid droplets for digital microfluidic applications.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 16th International Conference on Miniaturized Systems for Chemistry and Life Sciences, MicroTAS 2012
Pages863-865
Number of pages3
StatePublished - 2012
Event16th International Conference on Miniaturized Systems for Chemistry and Life Sciences, MicroTAS 2012 - Okinawa, Japan
Duration: 28 Oct 20121 Nov 2012

Publication series

NameProceedings of the 16th International Conference on Miniaturized Systems for Chemistry and Life Sciences, MicroTAS 2012

Conference

Conference16th International Conference on Miniaturized Systems for Chemistry and Life Sciences, MicroTAS 2012
Country/TerritoryJapan
CityOkinawa
Period28/10/121/11/12

Keywords

  • Conjugated polymers
  • Digital microfluidics
  • Droplet actuation
  • Marangoni stress
  • Microchannel
  • Tunable wetting

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