21 June 2001

Dewetting: Liquid marbles

Cover image: Rudiger Wehner

Moving small amounts of liquid about on a solid surface is a laborious-to-impossible task because the liquid tends to wet the surface rather than move as a unit. Various methods to suspend and transport droplets have been tried to avoid this problem, but they tend to be cumbersome. A simple alternative has now been developed. By coating or 'dressing' the drops with a powder which stops them wetting the surface, Aussillous and Qu�r� turn aqueous liquid droplets into 'liquid marbles' that then behave like a soft solid and become amenable to movement by gravitational, electrical and magnetic fields.

Liquid marbles
PASCALE AUSSILLOUS & DAVID QU�R�
Nature 411, 924-927 (21 June 2001)
| First Paragraph | Full Text | PDF (252 K) |

Non-stick water
L. MAHADEVAN
Adding a simple powder to a drop of water gives it remarkable properties: the powder-coated drop no longer sticks to surfaces, and moves by rolling, much as a solid sphere would.
Nature 411, 895-896 (21 June 2001)
| Full Text | PDF (117 K) |

The water marbles
Powder coated drops of water float on water and roll on glass.

21 June 2001 table of contents