Droplet
manipulation is crucial for diverse applications ranging
from bioassay to medical diagnosis. Current magnetic-field-driven
manipulation strategies are mainly based on fixed or partially tunable
structures, which limits their flexibility and versatility. Here,
a reconfigurable magnetic liquid metal robot (MLMR) is proposed to
address these challenges. Diverse droplet manipulation behaviors including
steady transport, oscillatory transport, and release can be achieved
by the MLMR, and their underlying physical mechanisms are revealed.
Moreover, benefiting from the magnetic-field-induced active deformability
and temperature-induced phase transition characteristics, its droplet-loading
capacity and shape-locking/unlocking switching can be flexibly adjusted.
Because of the fluidity-based adaptive deformability, MLMR can manipulate
droplets in challenging confined environments. Significantly, MLMR
can accomplish cooperative manipulation of multiple droplets efficiently
through on-demand self-splitting and merging. The high-performance
droplet manipulation using the reconfigurable and multifunctional
MLMR unfolds new potential in microfluidics, biochemistry, and other
interdisciplinary fields.
The intrinsic hydrophilicity of conventional dressings cannot achieve effective management of excessive biofluid around the wound bed, which inevitably causes infection and hinders wound healing. In addition, present dressings such as medical gauze or band aids have a limited stretching capability, which does not comply well with the skin deformation during muscle movement, thus impacting patient comfort. Herein, a Janus wound dressing is reported by assembling an external hydrophobic (HP) adhesive tape, a filter paper, and a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) Janus film. The PDMS Janus film as the primary dressing can unidirectionally remove biofluid away from the wound bed. The mechanism of the unidirectional biofluid transport is investigated, demonstrating that the stretching or bending of the Janus dressing is beneficial for unidirectional biofluid draining. It indicates that the Janus PDMS film has potential for practical applications on stretched or bended skin surface. In addition, in order to prevent bacterial infection, amoxicillin powder is uniformly encapsulated on the HP layer of Janus film, resulting in faster wound healing. This study is valuable for designing and fabricating next-generation dressings with high performance for clinical applications.
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