Smart Transportation Between Three Phases Through a Stimulus‐Responsive Functionally Cooperating Device

Abstract

A "smart", functionally cooperating device consisting of a platinum strip and steel bead inside a nickel foam cube with a temperature-responsive polymer coating shows a diving-surfacing cycle when the water temperature first falls below and then rises above the lower critical solution temperature (LCST) of the polymer, which marks the change from superhydrophobicity to superhydrophilicity. Furthermore, the smart device allows a cycled directional delivery of lipophilic molecules between three phases.

A pH-responsive smart surface for the continuous separation of oil/water/oil ternary mixtures

“…In its current form, the hierarchical microand nanostructure of the millimeter-scale copper foam was sufficient to provide sufficient surface roughness for the fabrication of a pH-responsive smart surface presenting wettability transformation between superhydrophobicity/superhydrophilicity after further modification with mixed thiols of SH(CH 2 ) 9 CH 3 and SH(CH 2 ) 10 COOH at a molar ratio of 4:6. [29][30][31] The surface modification of the mixed thiols was confirmed through X-ray photoelectron spectroscopyspectra (Supplementary Figure S2). At the ratio of 4:6, the modified rough surface will exhibit superhydrophobicity under acidic conditions because the carboxylic acid groups are mostly protonated, and thus the methyl groups play a dominant role in surface wettability; under alkaline condition, the majority of carboxylic acid groups is deprotonated and hydrated, contributing to a superhydrophilic surface property.…”

Converting Chemical Energy Into Electricity through a Functionally Cooperating Device with Diving–Surfacing Cycles

“…[ 3 ] The surfacing process is accomplished by increasing the buoyancy by replacing water with oxygen bubbles released from the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide. During the diving-surfacing cycle, the device initially was immersed in an aqueous solution of hydrogen peroxide and exposed to highly reactive oxygen, which might damage the stimuli-responsive self-assembled monolayer and reduce the durability of the device.…”

“…The two open-sided cubes contributed to the pHresponsive transformation from superhydrophobicity to superhydrophilicity, and the quartz box acted as a visible window for the observation of bubble generation. During the assembly process, a small segment of magnesium sheet was placed insideThe locomotion of macroscopic objects, especially visible and controllable movements, has attracted considerable attention for its potential applications in the controlled manipulation of multiple cells, [ 1,2 ] directed cargo transportation, [ 3,4 ] drug delivery, [5][6][7] assembly or disassembly at the macroscopic scale, [ 8 ] bio-mimicking locomotion, [ 9 ] and motion-driven sensing. [ 10 ] Although the locomotion of sub-micrometer objects can be spontaneously driven by Brownian motion, for objects greater than 10 micrometers (macroscopic objects), it is necessary to introduce an external fi eld or a chemical fuel as the driving force to achieve effective motion.…”

Design of the Smart City Planning System based on the Internet of Things

“…The strategy selection games of drivers' are symmetric games of single population, and the matrix of revenue produced is as shown in Table 1, [7].…”