Self-powered macroscopic Brownian motion of spontaneously running liquid metal motors

Surface effects of liquid metal amoeba

“…Gallium and its eutectic alloy such as gallium-indium (GaIn) or gallium-indium-tin (GaInSn), several typical non-toxic liquid-state metal materials at room temperature, are quickly gaining vast attention from academia and industry due to its unique and superior properties. Taking advantages of the high conductivity and remarkable deformability, extensive studies have been carried out on liquid gallium and its alloys in the investigation of soft devices and its components such as switch [1,2], pump [3,4], actuator [5,6] and motor [7][8][9] etc. By manipulating liquid metal in microfluidics, many of those functions can be achieved [10].…”

Gallium-Based Room-Temperature Liquid Metals: Actuation and Manipulation of Droplets and Flows

“…Similarly, Yuan et al (2015b) demonstrated a method to develop self-powered liquid metal motors with Brownian motion in an alkali electrolytes, by dissolving 1% of Al in GaIn10 (Ga 90%, In 10%). The main driving force here is also enabled by hydrogen bubbles, however with some differences compared with previous work.…”

Semisolid Al–Ga composites fabricated at room temperature for hydrogen generation

“…The motivation for the work stems from the studies on a liquid metal motor moving spontaneously by adding aluminium, where Ga-rich liquid alloys generate lots of gas during the moving course. [20][21][22] Since the mass percentage of Al is only 1% or even less, the volume of the hydrogen generated is not enough. 22 Lu et al 23 adopted GaIn alloys to erode Al plates, thereby realizing a continuous reaction to generate hydrogen.…”