Non-Newtonian fluid gating membranes with acoustically responsive and self-protective gas transport control.

Control of gas transport through porous media is desired in multifarious processes such as chemical reactions, interface absorption, and medical treatment. Liquid gating technology, based on dynamically adaptive interfaces, has been developed in recent years and has shown excellent control capability in gas manipulation-the reversible opening and closing of a liquid gate for gas transport as the applied pressure changes. Here, we report a new strategy to achieve self-protective gas transport control by regulating the dynamic porous interface in a non-Newtonian fluid gating membrane based on the shear thickening fluid.

Energy saving thermal adaptive liquid gating system.

Thermal transfer systems involving temperature control through heating, ventilation, and air conditioning applications have emerged as one of the largest energy issues in buildings. Traditional approaches mainly comprise closed and open systems, both of which have certain advantages and disadvantages in a single heating or cooling process. Here we report a thermal adaptive system with beneficial energy-saving properties, which uses functional liquid to exhibit high metastability, providing durability in a temperature-responsive liquid gating system.

Liquid Gating Meniscus-Shaped Deformable Magnetoelastic Membranes with Self-Driven Regulation of Gas/Liquid Release.

Liquid gating membranes have been demonstrated to show unprecedented properties of dynamicity, stability, adaptivity, and stimulus-responsiveness. Most recently, smart liquid gating membranes have attracted increasing attention to bring some brand-new properties for real-world applications, and various environment-driven systems have been created. Here, a self-driven system of a smart liquid gating membrane is further developed by designing a new sytem based on a liquid gating magnetoelastic porous membrane with reversible meniscus-shaped deformations, and it is not subject to the complex gating liquid restriction of magnetorheological fluids.

Reconfiguring confined magnetic colloids with tunable fluid transport behavior.

Collective dynamics of confined colloids are crucial in diverse scenarios such as self-assembly and phase behavior in materials science, microrobot swarms for drug delivery and microfluidic control. Yet, fine-tuning the dynamics of colloids in microscale confined spaces is still a formidable task due to the complexity of the dynamics of colloidal suspension and to the lack of methodology to probe colloids in confinement. Here, we show that the collective dynamics of confined magnetic colloids can be finely tuned by external magnetic fields.

Controllable Liquid-Liquid Printing with Defect-free, Corrosion-Resistance, Unrestricted Wetting Condition.

Conventional printing is worth revisiting because of its established procedures in meeting the surging demand of manufacturing printed electronics, 3D products, etc. However, one goal in penetrating printing into these is to control pattern transfer with no limitation of wettability. Here we introduce a miscible liquid-liquid transfer printing mechanism that can synchronize material preparation and material patterning with desirable properties including limitless selection of raw materials, corrosion resistance, no wetting constraint, and ability to prepare large-area defect-free materials for multi-function applications.