Researchers of the IIT Guwahati have developed a novel method of controlling the life-time of droplets containing suspended nanoparticles.
The suspended nanoparticles are magnetically active, thereby enables the flexibility of being under control in a magnetic forcing environment.
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“With the advent of miniaturization, effective transfer of mass between species has attracted significant attention of global communities because of its wide range of industrial applicability,” IIT Guwahati said in a statement.
“In particular, rapid evaporation and mixing between droplets has extensive range of engineering applications such as biological sample diagnostics, ink-jet printing, surface patterning and many more,” it said.
The research has been carried out by Dr. Pranab Kumar Mondal, assistant professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Guwahati and Ph.D. scholar Sudip Shyam in collaboration with Dr. Balkrishna Mehta (presently at Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Bhilai).
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The IIT Guwahati research revealed that the mixing between two droplets can be attenuated significantly under the actuation of magnetic field.
This novel method shows a significant enhancement of around 80% in the overall mixing time between the droplets in comparison to the case where no external force is applied.
“The research outcomes could be potentially beneficial in the area of biomedical diagnostics, whereby rapid and efficient mixing between fluids is of utmost importance,” IIT Guwahati said.
Besides, this research reveals that the magnetic field can be successfully used in altering the lifetime of a droplet containing suspended magnetic nanoparticles.
The research has shown that the evaporation rate of the droplet can be successfully controlled by varying the applied magnetic field frequency.
The inferences drawn from this study could have far-reaching implications ranging from biomedical engineering to surface patterning.
The results of this work have recently been published in “SOFT MATTER”, a reputed journal belonging to the Royal Society of Chemistry (https:// pubs.rsc.org/en/ content/articlelanding/2020/sm/ d0sm00345j#!divAbstract).
The article was selected for the themed collection of “SOFT MATTER MOST POPULAR 2020”. (https://pubs.rsc.org/en/journals/articlecollectionlanding?sercode=sm&themeid=576a0cbe-e46f-4a38-add5-08a34bd891ef).