These tiny liquid robots never run out of juice as long as they have
food
By removing electricity from equation, discovery overcomes yearslong
hurdle in robotics

Date:
December 8, 2021
Source:
DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Summary:
Scientists at Berkeley Lab and the University of Massachusetts
Amherst have demonstrated the first self-powered, aqueous robot
that runs continuously without electricity. The technology has
potential as an automated chemical synthesis or drug delivery
system for pharmaceuticals.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
When you think of a robot, images of R2-D2 or C-3PO might come to
mind. But robots can serve up more than just entertainment on the big
screen. In a lab, for example, robotic systems can improve safety and efficiency by performing repetitive tasks and handling harsh chemicals.


==========================================================================
But before a robot can get to work, it needs energy -- typically from electricity or a battery. Yet even the most sophisticated robot can run
out of juice. For many years, scientists have wanted to make a robot
that can work autonomously and continuously, without electrical input.

Now, as reported last week in the journal Nature Chemistry, scientists
at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
(Berkeley Lab) and the University of Massachusetts Amherst have
demonstrated just that -- through "water-walking" liquid robots that,
like tiny submarines, dive below water to retrieve precious chemicals,
and then surface to deliver chemicals "ashore" again and again.

The technology is the first self-powered, aqueous robot that runs
continuously without electricity. It has potential as an automated
chemical synthesis or drug delivery system for pharmaceuticals.

"We have broken a barrier in designing a liquid robotic system that can
operate autonomously by using chemistry to control an object's buoyancy,"
said senior author Tom Russell, a visiting faculty scientist and professor
of polymer science and engineering from the University of Massachusetts
Amherst who leads the Adaptive Interfacial Assemblies Towards Structuring Liquids program in Berkeley Lab's Materials Sciences Division.

Russell said that the technology significantly advances a family
of robotic devices called "liquibots." In previous studies, other
researchers demonstrated liquibots that autonomously perform a task,
but just once; and some liquibots can perform a task continuously,
but need electricity to keep on running. In contrast, "we don't have
to provide electrical energy because our liquibots get their power or
'food' chemically from the surrounding media," Russell explained.



========================================================================== Through a series of experiments in Berkeley Lab's Materials Sciences
Division, Russell and first author Ganhua Xie, a former postdoctoral
researcher at Berkeley Lab who is now a professor at Hunan University
in China, learned that "feeding" the liquibots salt makes the liquibots
heavier or denser than the liquid solution surrounding them.

Additional experiments by co-investigators Paul Ashby and Brett Helms
at Berkeley Lab's Molecular Foundry revealed how the liquibots transport chemicals back and forth.

Because they are denser than the solution, the liquibots -- which
look like little open sacks, and are just 2 millimeters in diameter --
cluster in the middle of the solution where they fill up with select
chemicals. This triggers a reaction that generates oxygen bubbles,
which like little balloons lift the liquibot up to the surface.

Another reaction pulls the liquibots to the rim of a container, where they "land" and offload their cargo.

The liquibots go back and forth, like the pendulum of a clock, and can
run continuously as long as there is "food" in the system.



========================================================================== Depending on their formulation, an array of liquibots could carry out
different tasks simultaneously. For example, some liquibots could detect different types of gas in the environment, while others react to specific
types of chemicals.

The technology may also enable autonomous, continuous robotic systems
that screen small chemical samples for clinical applications, or drug
discovery and drug synthesis applications.

Russell and Xie next plan to investigate how to scale up the technology
for larger systems, and explore how it would work on solid surfaces.

The Molecular Foundry is a nanoscience user facility at Berkeley Lab.

This work was supported by the DOE Office of Science. Additional support
was provided by the U.S. Army Research Office.

Video of liquid robots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdS72O2c9nQ ========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by
DOE/Lawrence_Berkeley_National_Laboratory. Original written by Theresa
Duque. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Ganhua Xie, Pei Li, Paul Y. Kim, Pei-Yang Gu, Brett A. Helms,
Paul D.

Ashby, Lei Jiang, Thomas P. Russell. Continuous, autonomous
subsurface cargo shuttling by nature-inspired meniscus-climbing
systems. Nature Chemistry, 2021; DOI: 10.1038/s41557-021-00837-5 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/12/211208110239.htm

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