Micromachines 2017, 8(7), 198; doi:10.3390/mi8070198
A Viscosity-Based Model for Bubble-Propelled Catalytic Micromotors
1
Department of Mechanics and Engineering Structure, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, China
2
State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, China
3
Infrastructure Management Department, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, China
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Academic Editors: Peer Fischer, Stefano Palagi and Tian Qiu
Received: 28 March 2017 / Revised: 17 June 2017 / Accepted: 19 June 2017 / Published: 23 June 2017
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Locomotion at Small Scales: From Biology to Artificial Systems)
Abstract
Micromotors have shown significant potential for diverse future applications. However, a poor understanding of the propelling mechanism hampers its further applications. In this study, an accurate mechanical model of the micromotor has been proposed by considering the geometric asymmetry and fluid viscosity based on hydrodynamic principles. The results obtained from the proposed model are in a good agreement with the experimental results. The effects of the semi-cone angle on the micromotor are re-analyzed. Furthermore, other geometric parameters, like the length-radius aspect ratio, exert great impact on the velocity. It is also observed that micromotors travel much slower in highly viscous solutions and, hence, viscosity plays an important role. View Full-TextKeywords:
micromotors; viscosity; mechanical model
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This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. (CC BY 4.0).
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Wang, Z.; Chi, Q.; Liu, L.; Liu, Q.; Bai, T.; Wang, Q. A Viscosity-Based Model for Bubble-Propelled Catalytic Micromotors. Micromachines 2017, 8, 198.
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