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Liquid Metal Phagocytosis: Intermetallic Wetting Induced Particle Internalization.

ABSTRACT: A biomimetic cellular-eating phenomenon in gallium-based liquid metal to realize particle internalization in full-pH-range solutions is reported. The effect, which is called liquid metal phagocytosis, represents a wet-processing strategy to prepare various metallic liquid metal-particle mixtures through introducing excitations such as an electrical polarization, a dissolving medium, or a sacrificial metal. A nonwetting-to-wetting transition resulting from surface transition and the reactive nature of the intermetallic wetting between the two metallic phases are found to be primarily responsible for such particle-eating behavior. Theoretical study brings forward a physical picture to the problem, together with a generalized interpretation. The model developed here, which uses the macroscopic contact angle between the two metallic phases as a criterion to predict the particle internalization behavior, shows good consistency with experimental results.

SUBMITTER: Tang J

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5441499 | biostudies-literature | 2017 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Liquid Metal Phagocytosis: Intermetallic Wetting Induced Particle Internalization.

Tang Jianbo J Zhao Xi X Li Jing J Zhou Yuan Y Liu Jing J

Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) 20170424 5

A biomimetic cellular-eating phenomenon in gallium-based liquid metal to realize particle internalization in full-pH-range solutions is reported. The effect, which is called liquid metal phagocytosis, represents a wet-processing strategy to prepare various metallic liquid metal-particle mixtures through introducing excitations such as an electrical polarization, a dissolving medium, or a sacrificial metal. A nonwetting-to-wetting transition resulting from surface transition and the reactive natu ...[more]

PMID: 28546916

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Project description:We report a study of the wetting and ordering of thermotropic liquid crystal (LC) droplets that are trapped (or "caged") within micrometer-sized cationic polymeric microcapsules dispersed in aqueous solutions of surfactants. When they were initially dispersed in water, we observed caged, nearly spherical droplets of E7, a nematic LC mixture, to occupy ?40% of the interior volume of the polymeric capsules [diameter of 6.7 ± 0.3 ?m, formed via covalent layer-by-layer assembly of branched polyethylenimine and poly(2-vinyl-4,4-dimethylazlactone)] and to contact the interior surface of the capsule wall at an angle of ?157 ± 11°. The internal ordering of LC within the droplets corresponded to the so-called bipolar configuration (distorted by contact with the capsule walls). While the effects of dodecyltrimethylammonium bromide (DTAB) and sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) on the internal ordering of "free" LC droplets are similar, we observed the two surfactants to trigger strikingly different wetting and configurational transitions when LC droplets were caged within polymeric capsules. Specifically, upon addition of SDS to the aqueous phase, we observed the contact angles (?) of caged LC on the interior surface of the capsule to decrease, resulting in a progression of complex droplet shapes, including lenses (? ? 130 ± 10°), hemispheres (? ? 89 ± 5°), and concave hemispheres (? < 85°). The wetting transitions induced by SDS also resulted in changes in the internal ordering of the LC to yield states topologically equivalent to axial and radial configurations. Although topologically equivalent to free droplets, the contributions that surface anchoring, LC elasticity, and topological defects make to the free energy of caged LC droplets differ from those of free droplets. Overall, these results and others reported herein lead us to conclude that caged LC droplets offer a platform for new designs of LC-droplet-based responsive soft matter that cannot be realized in dispersions of free droplets.

Dataset Information

Liquid Metal Phagocytosis: Intermetallic Wetting Induced Particle Internalization.

Publications

Liquid Metal Phagocytosis: Intermetallic Wetting Induced Particle Internalization.

Similar Datasets

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