Pumping of Ionic Liquids by Liquid Metal‐Enabled Electrocapillary Flow under DC‐Biased AC Forcing

Xue, Rui; Liu, Weiyu; Jiang, Tianyi; Song, Chao; Jiang, Hongyuan; Ren, Yukun

doi:10.1002/admi.202000345

Cited by 24 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…So, temperature elevation of our pump device due to electric heat generation may not be significant. This theoretical point of view, that constant temperature thermophysical properties may be valid, is also in good accordance with our previous experimental findings [55].…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 92%

Pumping of electrolyte with mobile liquid metal droplets driven by continuous electrowetting: A full‐scaled simulation study considering surface‐coupled electrocapillary two‐phase flow

Liu

Tao

et al. 2020

Electrophoresis

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With the excellent merits of both solid conductors and rheological fluids, liquid metal (LM) provides new opportunities to serve as flexible building blocks of miniaturized electronic and fluidic devices. The phenomenon of continuous electrowetting (CEW) has been long utilized for actuating LM contents in buffer medium, wherein an externally imposed voltage difference is responsible of manipulating the interfacial tension of deformable LM droplets. CEW effectively lowers the surface tension at the LM/electrolyte interface by driving bipolar counterions to the surface of conducting droplet. Since surface tension coefficient relies sensitively on the local voltage drop across the induced double layer, an electric‐analogy Marangoni effect occurs even under a rather weak electric field in the presence of a surface gradient of the interfacial tension. CEW of LM routinely induces unidirectional pumping of electrolyte in the direction of applied electric field, with LM droplet translating oppositely within the device channel. Although this subject has received great attention from the microfluidic society in the past decade, previous reports concerned either the individual delivery of the suspension medium or the transport of LM droplet. Starting from this point, we offer herein a fully coupled physical description of two‐phase flow dynamics occurring in CEW. The proposed simulation model successfully incorporates the synergy of the interfacial electrokinetic momentum transfer, surface tension on a curved surface, contact angle at the three‐phase contact line as well as the gravity force density. The spatial‐temporal motion of the contact interface is traced instantly with a moving mesh approach. By direct numerical simulation, the importance of the direct‐current bias, additional alternating‐current forcing, droplet size, initial ion adsorption in the process of CEW is addressed. Additionally, it is discovered that increasing the number of LM droplet is more cost‐effective than enhancing the volume of a single drop in terms of achieving an improvement of the resulted electrocapillary pump performance, while the translational speed of the discrete droplet carrier does not make an observable change in response to a variation in the drop number. These results prove invaluable in terms of an elaborate design of smart on‐chip electrokinetic frameworks embedding flexible LM contents in modern micro‐total‐analytical systems.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 92%

Pumping of electrolyte with mobile liquid metal droplets driven by continuous electrowetting: A full‐scaled simulation study considering surface‐coupled electrocapillary two‐phase flow

Liu

Tao

et al. 2020

Electrophoresis

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“…Still, electrochemical and magnetic actuation of liquid metals are the predominant means to manipulate their location and shape, as they can be applied locally and on-demand with ease. Controlled manipulation of liquid metal in alkaline aqueous solution was, for example, employed in liquid-metal-enabled pumps and switches. , Just recently, the same principle was employed for pumping room temperature ionic liquids (ILs) (Figure c,d) . In this case, higher flow rates could be achieved, which was related to the greater ion adsorption in the ILs .…”

Section: Surface Tensionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Controlled manipulation of liquid metal in alkaline aqueous solution was, for example, employed in liquid-metal-enabled pumps and switches. , Just recently, the same principle was employed for pumping room temperature ionic liquids (ILs) (Figure c,d) . In this case, higher flow rates could be achieved, which was related to the greater ion adsorption in the ILs . An additional application of liquid metal actuation is powering the movement of the robot boat by the continuous electrowetting approach .…”

Section: Surface Tensionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Critical Review on the Physical Properties of Gallium-Based Liquid Metals and Selected Pathways for Their Alteration

2021

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Gallium-based liquid metals have gained plenty of attention in the scientific community due to their extraordinary properties. The most intriguing properties of liquid metals are high surface tension, density anomaly, high electrical and thermal conductivity, phase transition, and their temperature and low viscosity in combination with their low toxicity. Though there are many reports of the physical properties of gallium-based liquid metals, some of these are highly scattered and inconsistent. Therefore, we compile literature data of these aspects of gallium-based liquid metals, point out general relationships of these physical parameters, and unravel inconsistencies in the literature. Subsequently, we state reasons for the observed scatter and recommend science-based values researchers should employ. Furthermore, we discuss important dependencies between the physical parameters, introduce methods to alter the physical parameters, and introduce selected applications based on changing the physical properties. Finally, we point out open questions concerned with the physical parameters of liquid metals, which should be investigated in the future.

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“…LM pumps have been used as cooling systems, 81 and have also been shown to be able to pump an ionic liquid. 82 Using ionic liquid offers an advantage over using NaOH as electrolyte due to an increased interfacial ion adsorption, which results in a higher pumping rate.…”

Section: Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Liquid metals as soft electromechanical actuators

Cole

Tang

2022

Mater. Adv.

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Pumping of Ionic Liquids by Liquid Metal‐Enabled Electrocapillary Flow under DC‐Biased AC Forcing

Cited by 24 publications

References 39 publications

Pumping of electrolyte with mobile liquid metal droplets driven by continuous electrowetting: A full‐scaled simulation study considering surface‐coupled electrocapillary two‐phase flow

Pumping of electrolyte with mobile liquid metal droplets driven by continuous electrowetting: A full‐scaled simulation study considering surface‐coupled electrocapillary two‐phase flow

Critical Review on the Physical Properties of Gallium-Based Liquid Metals and Selected Pathways for Their Alteration

Liquid metals as soft electromechanical actuators

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