We illustrate the use of catalytic nanowire motors for directional motion and microscale transport of cargo within microfluidic channel networks. The CNT-based synthetic nanomotor can propel a large cargo load at high speeds through predetermined paths and junctions of the microchannel network. The magnetic properties of the nickel-containing nanomotors offer controlled cargo manipulations, including en-route load, drag, and release. Such use of synthetic nanomachines can lead to chemically powered versatile laboratory-on-a-chip devices performing a series of tasks simultaneously or sequentially.

Bimetallic rod-shaped nanomotors swim autonomously in hydrogen peroxide solutions. Here, we present a scaling analysis, computational simulations, and experimental data that show that the nanomotor locomotion is driven by fluid slip around the nanomotor surface due to electrical body forces. The body forces are generated by a coupling of charge density and electric fields induced by electrochemical reactions occurring on the nanomotor surface. We describe the dependence of nanomotor motion on the nanomotor surface potential and reaction-driven flux.

Catalytic bimetallic nanomotors can swim at 100 body lengths per second as well as pick up, haul, and release micrometer-scale cargo. The electrokinetic locomotion of bimetallic nanomotors is driven by the electrocatalytic decomposition of hydrogen peroxide. The motors are typically fabricated by electrodeposition-based template synthesis techniques that result in heterogeneous samples and require specialized knowledge of electrochemistry, a three-electrode potentiostat setup, cyanide-based chemistry, and porous membranes. This paper presents a rapid and facile method for fabrication of spherical bimetallic motors that only requires access to metal deposition equipment and commercially available microspheres. The resulting spherical motors swim at speeds comparable to rod-shaped motors with the same dimensions and composition. The spherical motors' velocity increases with fuel concentration and decreasing diameter.

Spherical catalytic micromotors fabricated as described in Wheat et al. [Langmuir 26, 13052 (2010)] show fuel concentration dependent translational and rotational velocity. The motors possess short-time and long-time diffusivities that scale with the translational and rotational velocity with respect to fuel concentration. The short-time diffusivities are two to three orders of magnitude larger than the diffusivity of a Brownian sphere of the same size, increase linearly with concentration, and scale as v 2 /2ω. The measured long-time diffusivities are five times lower than the short-time diffusivities, scale as v 2 /{2D r [1 + (ω/D r ) 2 ]}, and exhibit a maximum as a function of concentration. Maximums of effective diffusivity can be achieved when the rotational velocity has a higher order of dependence on the controlling parameter(s), for example fuel concentration, than the translational velocity. A maximum in diffusivity suggests that motors can be separated or concentrated using gradients in fuel concentration. The decrease of diffusivity with time suggests that motors will have a high collision probability in confined spaces and over short times; but will not disperse over relatively long distances and times. The combination of concentration dependent diffusive time scales and nonmonotonic diffusivity of circle-swimming motors suggests that we can expect complex particle responses in confined geometries and in spatially dependent fuel concentration gradients.

A method of quantifying equilibrium reactions in a microchannel using a fluorometric reaction of Fluo-4 and Ca2+ ions is presented. Under the proper conditions, equilibrium reactions can be used to quantify fluid mixing without the challenges associated with constituent mixing measures such as limited imaging spatial resolution and viewing angle coupled with three-dimensional structure. Quantitative measurements of CaCl and calcium-indicating fluorescent dye Fluo-4 mixing are measured in Y-shaped microchannels. Reactant and product concentration distributions are modeled using Green’s function solutions and a numerical solution to the advection-diffusion equation. Equilibrium reactions provide for an unambiguous, quantitative measure of mixing when the reactant concentrations are greater than 100 times their dissociation constant and the diffusivities are equal. At lower concentrations and for dissimilar diffusivities, the area averaged fluorescence signal reaches a maximum before the species have interdiffused, suggesting that reactant concentrations and diffusivities must be carefully selected to provide unambiguous, quantitative mixing measures. Fluorometric equilibrium reactions work over a wide range of pH and background concentrations such that they can be used for a wide variety of fluid mixing measures including industrial or microscale flows.