Fluidics articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    3D-printed glass holds great potential. However, it is challenging to control both the dimension and the resolution of the printed material. Here, authors present a one-photon 3D printing approach to produce high-performance fused silica glass with sub-micron resolution and millimetric dimensions.

    • Ziyong Li
    • , Yanwen Jia
    •  & Xiewen Wen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A combination of functional nanoparticles and liquid streaming can be used to generate structures for the fabrication of soft functional materials. In this study, authors demonstrate the creation of Janus-structured liquids with anisotropic and programmable distributions of nanoparticles by utilizing interfacial assembly and jamming of nanoparticles at the liquid-liquid interface.

    • Ahmadreza Ghaffarkhah
    • , Seyyed Alireza Hashemi
    •  & Mohammad Arjmand

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Membrane distillation is an emerging desalination technology to obtain freshwater from saline based on low-grade energy. Here the authors report on novel superhydrophobic hierarchical porous membranes with enhanced distillation flux suitable for desalination or wastewater treatment.

    • Youmin Hou
    • , Prexa Shah
    •  & Hans-Jürgen Butt

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The utility of microfluidic devices has been limited by several drawbacks including low resolution, inferior feature fidelity, poor repeatability. Here the authors address these challenges by developing a strategic approach of image guided in-situ maskless lithography to fabricate a variety of microfluidic devices and resolve critical proximity effect and size limitations in rapid prototyping.

    • Ratul Paul
    • , Yuwen Zhao
    •  & Yaling Liu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Unwanted vapor backflow and chaotic two-phase flow patterns can hinder thermal transport performance in their respective systems. Here, the authors revisit the classic Tesla valve design and demonstrate a Tesla valve-based thermal regulator with capillary structures that can suppress vapor backflow and achieve directional two-phase flow.

    • Wenming Li
    • , Siyan Yang
    •  & Zuankai Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    “Due to the inherent disorder and fluidity of water, machining of water through laser cutting is challenging. Here, authors report a strategy through laser cutting to realize the machining of nanoparticle encased water pancakes with the depth of water at sub-millimeter level.”

    • Jicheng Niu
    • , Wenjing Liu
    •  & Fei Li

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Nanochannels in laminated graphene oxide nanosheets featuring confined mass transport have attracted interest in multiple research fields. As an important aspect for efficient pressure-driven membrane processes, authors investigate the response and deformation behaviours of such nanochannels to different external conditions.

    • Kecheng Guan
    • , Yanan Guo
    •  & Hideto Matsuyama

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Treating acute disease like anaphylaxis is challenging due to the inability to administer therapeutics in a timely manner and regulate pharmacokinetics precisely within a short time window. Here the authors develop active acoustic metamaterials-driven transdermal drug delivery for rapid and on-demand acute disease management.

    • Junhua Xu
    • , Hongwei Cai
    •  & Feng Guo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Typical buildings are static structures, unable to adjust to dynamic temperature and daylight fluctuations. Here, authors present an adaptive alternative, using shape-tuneable pigment injections to control solar ingress and reduce estimated building energy use by 30%.

    • Raphael Kay
    • , Charlie Katrycz
    •  & Benjamin D. Hatton

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Nanoplastic water pollution represents an increasing concern. Here, photogravitactic MXene-derived microrobots are programmed to trap nanoplastics in the layered structure and magnetically transfer them to low-cost electrodes for further detection.

    • Mario Urso
    • , Martina Ussia
    •  & Martin Pumera

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Chemically propelled micropumps are wireless fluid flow driving systems with many potential applications. Here, the authors report a self-driven reusable Nafion micropump fueled by different salt cations in a wide range of concentrations that triggers both radial and unidirectional flows, showing efficient water remediation capabilities.

    • María J. Esplandiu
    • , David Reguera
    •  & Jordi Fraxedas

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Organized microfibrillation can be used to optically printing well-defined porosity with high resolution into thin polymer films. Here, the authors use this method to create self-enclosed microfluidic devices in different flexible substrates and exploit the intrinsic appearance of structural colours for sensing application

    • Detao Qin
    • , Andrew H. Gibbons
    •  & Easan Sivaniah

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Magnetic, wireless miniature devices are promising for healthcare, information technology, and many other field but lack advanced fabrication methods for micrometer length scales. Here authors present a molding-integrated direct laser writing fabrication protocol to fabricate 3D micron-scale devices with programmable magnetization and multi-material integration.

    • Zemin Liu
    • , Meng Li
    •  & Metin Sitti

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Despite many advantages of vat photopolymerization in microfluidic device fabrication, well-controlled μm-sized (< 100 μm) channels in the layer building direction remains a challenge. Here, authors present a general high resolution and low-cost 3D printing process that can produce devices within the 10 μm scale.

    • Yang Xu
    • , Fangjie Qi
    •  & Yong Chen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here the authors expanded interlayer spaces in graphite by intercalating aqueous KCl ions utilizing an electric field. It exhibited salt rejection efficiencies >99% and high water permeation rates, a property very useful for desalination.

    • Saini Lalita
    • , Nemala Siva Sankar
    •  & Kalon Gopinadhan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Research on water confinement in small hydrophobic pores remains scarce because of a preconception that small hydrophobic pores repulse water molecules. Here, the authors demonstrate water confinement across hydrophobic microporous channels in crystalline covalent organic frameworks.

    • Ke Tian Tan
    • , Shanshan Tao
    •  & Donglin Jiang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Though bound states in the continuum (BICs) in acoustic systems are attractive for acoustic resonators design, acoustic BICs typically show low Q-factor. Here, the authors report a high performance open acoustic resonator that supports symmetry-protected, Friedrich-Wintgen and mirror symmetry-induced BICs.

    • Lujun Huang
    • , Yan Kei Chiang
    •  & Andrey E. Miroshnichenko

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Gymnosperm sapwood is an abundantly available material to construct water filters but the material’s behaviour as a filter is poorly understood and challenges such as short shelf live have not been addressed. Here, the authors develop guidelines for the design and fabrication of xylem filters and demonstrate gravity-operated filters with a shelf life of more than two years for the removal of contaminants from spring, tap and ground water.

    • Krithika Ramchander
    • , Megha Hegde
    •  & Rohit Karnik

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Low secretion rates and evaporation pose challenges for collecting resting thermoregulatory sweat for non-invasive analysis of body physiology. Here the authors present wearable microfluidics-based patches for continuous sweat monitoring at rest that enable detection of pH, Cl−, and levodopa for dynamic sweat analysis related to routine activities, stress events, hypoglycemia-induced sweating, and Parkinson’s disease.

    • Hnin Yin Yin Nyein
    • , Mallika Bariya
    •  & Ali Javey

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Vertically stacked graphene oxide sheets are promising structures for molecular sieving technologies. By folding large planar sheets in an accordion-like manner, Liu et al. fabricate a thin robust filter with near-vertically aligned nanochannels geared towards commercial separation membranes.

    • Muchun Liu
    • , Paula J. Weston
    •  & Robert H. Hurt

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Printing small droplets for a wide range of applications remains a challenge. Here, the authors propose a simple drop-on-demand printing technique which replaces the use of a nozzle with a sieve, enabling printing of nanoparticle suspension with 71% mass-loading, performed for surface tension range of 72–32 mNm-1 and viscosity up to 33 mPas.

    • Chandantaru Dey Modak
    • , Arvind Kumar
    •  & Prosenjit Sen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Owing to its atomic thinness, graphene is susceptible to wrinkles and folds. Here, the authors demonstrate controlled wrinkle formation in graphene under uniaxial tension and show that the obtained mosaic patterns can be used as channels for trapping or administering water and other fluids.

    • Maria Giovanna Pastore Carbone
    • , Anastasios C. Manikas
    •  & Costas Galiotis

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Natural leaves can purify water under sunlight through a combination of osmotic pressure, transpiration, and guttation effects. Here the authors design a composite material mimicking these combined effects, achieving sunlight-driven pure water production from brine with high collection rate.

    • Hongya Geng
    • , Qiang Xu
    •  & Chun Li

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Fused silica glass has excellent optical properties, chemical and thermal stability and hardness, but its microstructuring for miniaturized applications has proven difficult. Here the authors demonstrate obtainment of precise arbitrary three dimensional hollow microstructures in fused silica glass by sacrificial template replication.

    • Frederik Kotz
    • , Patrick Risch
    •  & Bastian E. Rapp

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Graphene oxide membranes have great potential in separation processes, but small ions rejection needs improvement for large scale applications. Here the authors manipulate the membrane’s surface charge to control selective ion transport, achieving high rejection for A2B and AB2 type salts and maintaining high water permeance.

    • Mengchen Zhang
    • , Kecheng Guan
    •  & Nanping Xu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Non-equilibrium systems of immiscible liquids have significant potential to advance different technologies, but control over morphology or functionality remains unexplored. Here, the authors demonstrate an all-liquid fluidic device by exploiting surfactant assemblies to produce a semi-permeable membrane between the liquids.

    • Wenqian Feng
    • , Yu Chai
    •  & Brett A. Helms

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Light can be used to rotate micrometric turbines that usually rely on scattering to redistribute optical momentum and generate a mechanical torque. Here, 3D microfabricated light guiding structures can reroute an incoming flow of optical energy to generate a strong, uniform and controllable torque.

    • Silvio Bianchi
    • , Gaszton Vizsnyiczai
    •  & Roberto Di Leonardo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Some animals have multimodal locomotive capabilities to survive in different environments. Inspired by nature, Chen et al. build a centimeter-scaled robot that is capable of walking on water, underwater, on land, and transiting among all three, whose ‘feet’ break water by modifying surface tension.

    • Yufeng Chen
    • , Neel Doshi
    •  & Robert J. Wood

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Droplet evaporation control has applications in inkjet printing and surface patterning. Here, the authors show that on slippery curved substrates droplets evaporate by slowly retracting and then suddenly snapping, which can be exploited to design surfaces that control an evaporation sequence.

    • Gary G. Wells
    • , Élfego Ruiz-Gutiérrez
    •  & Rodrigo Ledesma-Aguilar

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Janus particles have a surface with two distinct physical or chemical properties; when one side is conducting and the other dielectric, the particles can be guided by an electric field. Here the authors polarize the metallic hemisphere of the particle which enables selective pickup and release of cargo.

    • Alicia M. Boymelgreen
    • , Tov Balli
    •  & Gilad Yossifon

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Nanoporous membranes show great potential for ionic separations, but the typical trade-off between permeability and selectivity hinders their applicability. Here the authors fabricate nanoporous polymeric membranes with a high density of 0.5 nm pores and demonstrate their exceptional performance for ion sieving.

    • Pengfei Wang
    • , Mao Wang
    •  & Yugang Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Biological shuttles efficiently traffic molecules in cells, inspiring the development of synthetic analogs. Here, the authors create colloidal shuttles that collect, transport, and deliver cargo particles and cells under the control of external electrical and magnetic fields.

    • Ahmet F. Demirörs
    • , Fritz Eichenseher
    •  & André R. Studart

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Controlling surface wettability using visible light is highly attractive for a range of liquid separation technologies. Here, Varanasi, McKinley and colleagues fabricate dye-sensitized photocatalytic TiO2surfaces on which liquid droplet motion can be externally manipulated by visible light illumination.

    • Gibum Kwon
    • , Divya Panchanathan
    •  & Kripa K. Varanasi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Droplet manipulation is an essential task for designing microfluidic platforms such as lab-on-chip devices. Here Tanget al. develop a non-wettable mesh with reversible liquid adhesion controlled by mechanically inserting wettable pillars which allows for effective and rapid droplet manoeuvring.

    • Xin Tang
    • , Pingan Zhu
    •  & Liqiu Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The lithium solvation structure in the electrolyte solution for lithium-ion batteries has not been fully understood. Here, the authors show ultrafast fluxional exchange of carbonate solvent molecules in and out of lithium-ion solvation sheath utilizing coherent two-dimensional infrared spectroscopy.

    • Kyung-Koo Lee
    • , Kwanghee Park
    •  & Minhaeng Cho

  • Article |

    Lab-on-a-chip devices contain liquid circuits, but the electronic-like operation on microfluidic chips at constant pressure is challenging. Here, Kim et al.design a gravity-driven microfluidic oscillator that realizes time-independent self-switching events across multiple parallel sub-circuits.

    • Sung-Jin Kim
    • , Ryuji Yokokawa
    •  & Shuichi Takayama

  • Article
    | Open Access

    An understanding of how fluid–solid interactions affect flow dynamics is essential for microfluidics design. Here the authors show how fluids in linear channels can be controlled by the degree of confinement when the contact-line slip length is comparable to the channel size.

    • Siti Aminah Setu
    • , Roel P.A. Dullens
    •  & Rodrigo Ledesma-Aguilar

  • Article |

    The mechanism through which ice forms on surfaces is of broad technological relevance. This study examines the manner in which ice forms on so-called 'icephobic' surfaces, and demonstrates that simple changes in the environmental conditions can render the icephobicity ineffective.

    • Stefan Jung
    • , Manish K. Tiwari
    •  & Dimos Poulikakos

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