Controlled Cooperative Wetting Enabled Heterogeneous Structured 3D Morphing Transducers

Sreepathy Sridhar,Ansu Sun,Zhenghong Li,Ben Bin Xu,Cong Wang,Yifan Li,Jonathan G Terry,Xue Chen,Haibao Lv

doi:10.1002/admi.202001211

Abstract

AbstractA unique microfluidics approach for functional hydrogel patterning with multilayered heterogeneous structures is presented. Prepolymer solution droplets with differentiated sodium acrylate concentrations are dispensed/printed in a wetting‐controlled “two‐parallel plate” (TPP, like a Hele‐Shaw Cell) system. The gelation within the system enables hydrogel bilayer structures with reconfigurable 3D deformations driven by in‐plane and through‐thickness heterogeneity under stimuli‐responsive mask‐less swelling/deswelling. The cooperation between swelling mismatch of functional groups results in a higher complexity of 3D reconfiguration in responding to discrete levels of stimulation inputs. This facile patterning technology with an in‐built ionic hierarchy can be scaled up/down with advanced transducing functionalities in various fields.

Highlights

Link: Northumbria University has developed Northumbria Research Link (NRL) to enable users to access the University’s research output
The mismatched strains between the expanded/contracted functional gel blocks and the non-functional substrate will induce an internal stress, which leads to the bending behaviour of the gel structure
We used the thermal expansion and contraction instead, which has already been incorporated in most commercial computing software

Summary

Introduction

Link: Northumbria University has developed Northumbria Research Link (NRL) to enable users to access the University’s research output. Single copies of full items can be reproduced, displayed or performed, and given to third parties in any format or medium for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge, provided the authors, title and full bibliographic details are given, as well as a hyperlink and/or URL to the original metadata page. The full policy is available online: http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/policies.html

Objectives

Results

Conclusion