Creating reconfigurable fluidic devices from liquid building blocks
By 
Rebecca Trager2024-02-21T10:50:00
Inspired by toy blocks, Chinese researchers have created, manipulated functional liquid devices by assembling and disassembling liquid droplets
Reconfigurable functional liquid devices have been created by assembling and disassembling different types of liquid droplets. Liquid droplets such as silicone oil can be printed into a range of structures and liquids can then flow through them allowing bespoke fluidic devices to be made.
Inspired by toy building blocks, the researchers from Southeast University in China have shown that complex and stable liquid devices, including fluidic devices and multiphase devices, could be created and reconfigured in minutes by directly assembling and disassembling the numerous liquid units. They have demonstrated 2D and 3D liquid devices with diverse geometries, various liquid compositions and well-designed liquid–liquid interface arrangements.