BACKGROUND: A good colloidal stability of magnetite nanoparticles (MNPs) dispersion is of utmost importance for its environmentally related applications. In the present work, a water-soluble anionic polyelectrolyte, poly(sodium 4-styrene sulfonate) (PSS), was used to stabilize dispersions of MNPs in a pH-dependent aqueous medium. RESULTS: An excellent methylene blue (MB) dye removal efficiency at equilibrium of up to 94% has been observed by the colloidally stabilized nano-magnetites. Dynamic light scattering and electrophoretic analysis showed that the PSS-coated MNPs exhibited better colloidal stability, with an almost constant hydrodynamic diameter of ∼150 nm and insignificant clustering behavior throughout the measuring time scale of 5 h. Transmission electron microscopy evidenced the success coating of PSS onto MNPs. In terms of its chemical resistance, the PSS-coated MNPs were able to tolerate a wide pH range from 2 to 10. This work depicts a simple physiochemical coating method to stabilize dispersions of nano-magnetites, which promoted a better MB adsorption capacity of PSScoated MNPs at 14.9 mg g-1 than the naked MNPs at 10.38 mg g-1. The adsorption process follows Langmuir isotherm and pseudo-second-order reaction kinetics with both correlations R 2 > 0.99. PSS-coated MNPs demonstrated outstanding regeneration capacity for four batch adsorption cycles with an almost consistent MB removal efficiency higher than 85%. CONCLUSION: This in-house developed nano-sorbent has potential in economical applications with a less budgeted adsorbent replacement (at least 4 cycles of regeneration) for low-cost separation of pollutants, such as MB from polluted water.

Combining both device and particle designs are the essential concepts to be considered in magnetophoretic system development. Researcher efforts are often dedicated to only one of these design aspects and neglecting the interplay between them. Herein, to bring out importance of the idea of integration between device and particle, we reviewed the working principle of magnetophoretic system (includes both device and particle design concepts). Since, the magnetophoretic force is influenced by both field gradient and magnetization volume, hence, accurate prediction of the magnetophoretic force is relying on the availability of information on both parameters. In device design, we focus on the different strategies used to create localized high‐field gradient. For particle design, we emphasize on the scaling between hydrodynamic size and magnetization volume. Moreover, we also briefly discussed the importance of magnetoshape anisotropy related to particle design aspect of magnetophoretic systems. Next, we illustrated the need for integration between device and particle design using microscale applications of magnetophoretic systems, include magnetic tweezers and microfluidic systems, as our working example. On the basis of our discussion, we highlighted several promising examples of microscale magnetophoretic systems which greatly utilized the interplay between device and particle design. Further, we concluded the review with several factors that possibly resulted in the lack of research efforts related to device and particle design integration.

The changes in the transport behavior of a microswimmer before and after cargo loading are crucial to understanding and control of the motion of a biohybrid microbot. In this work, we show the change in swimming behavior of biflagellated microalgae Chlamydomonas reinhardtii picking up a 4.5 μm polystyrene microbead upon collision. The microswimmer changed from linear forward motion into helical motion upon the attachment of the cargo and swam with a decreased swimming velocity. We revealed the helical motion of the microswimmer upon cargo loading due to suppression of flagella by image analysis of magnified timelapse images of C. reinhardtii with one microbead attached at the anterior end (between the flagella). Furthered suppression on the flagellum imposed by the loading of the second cargo has led to increased oscillation per displacement traveled and decreased swimming velocity. Moreover, the microswimmer with a microbead attached at the posterior end swam with swimming velocity close to free swimming microalgae and did not exhibit helical swimming behavior. The experimental results and analysis showed that the loading location of the cargo has a great influence over the swimming behavior of the microswimmer. Furthermore, the work balance calculation and mathematical analysis based on Lighthill's model are well consistent with our experimental findings.

The possible magnetophoretic migration of iron oxide nanoparticles through the cellulosic matrix within a single layer of paper is challenging with its underlying mechanism remained unclear. Even with the recent advancements of theoretical understanding on magnetophoresis, mainly driven by cooperative and hydrodynamics phenomena, the contributions of these two mechanisms on possible penetration of magnetic nanoparticles through cellulosic matrix of paper have yet been proven. Here, by using iron oxide nanoparticles (IONPs), both nanospheres and nanorods, we have investigated the migration kinetics of these nanoparticles through grade 4 Whatman filter paper with a particle retention of 20–25 μm. By performing droplet tracking experiments, the real-time stained area growth of the particle droplet on the filter paper, under the influences of a grade N40 NdFeB magnet, were recorded. Our results show that the spatial and temporal expansion of the IONP stain is biased toward the magnet and such an effect is dependent on (i) particle concentration and (ii) particle shape. The kinetics data were first analyzed by treating it as a radial wicking fluid, and later the IONP distribution within the cellulosic matrix was investigated by optical microscopy. The macroscopic flow front velocities of the stained area ranged from 259 μm/s to 16 040 μm/s. Moreover, the microscopic magnetophoretic velocity of nanorod cluster was also successfully measured as ∼214 μm/s. Findings in this work have indirectly revealed the strong influence of cooperative magnetophoresis and the engineering feasibility of paper-based magnetophoretic technology by taking advantage of magnetoshape anisotropy effect of the particles.