Superhydrophobic Pseudosupertetrahedral Sulfido Metalate Clusters for Constructing Liquid Marbles

Abstract

One pseudopentasupertetrahedral chalcogenidometalate cluster, [(BuSn)3SnCd4S13(OH)]·6­(H+DMP) (PPS-1; H+DMP = protonated 3,5-dimethylpiperidine), has been isolated by use of an organotin precursor. They are arranged to generate two types of tetrahedrally patterned cages, which further interconnect to form a diamond network. Owing to the covalent attachment of abundant alkyl groups, PPS-1 exhibits excellent hydrophobicity and could be used as an assembly substance for building liquid marbles.

pH-triggered adjustable bursting of liquid marbles in water pools

“…Various types of hydrophobic particles were introduced to demonstrate almost instant bursting of LMs in the presence of specific stimuli, and such earlier reported approaches remained inapplicable to adjust the lifetime of LMs in the presence of respective stimuli, as shown in Table 1. 4,5,7,8,14,15,23,24,26,32–40 Thus, the report of mechanically robust LMs, having the ability to (a) automatically release the inner liquid at a precise and pre-defined time without having any external intervention, and (b) adjustable triggered bursting of the inner liquid on the water pool in both acidic and alkaline conditions, is yet to be introduced in the literature. Such principally distinct design would likely provide an elegant avenue for deriving functional soft materials for different fundamental and applied studies—including adjustable triggered drug release, on-demand chemical reaction and rapid chemical sensing.…”