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Underwater Magneto-Driven Air De-bubbler

Authors:
U. Bimendra Gunatilake, Y. Alvarez-Braña, E. Ojeda, L. Basabe-Desmonts, F. Benito-Lopez
Year:
2022
Journal:
J. Mat. Chem. A
Impact Factor:
12.732
Quartile:
2020-D1 93% (ENERGY & FUELS)
ISBN/ISSN:
2050-7488
DOI:
DOI: 10.1039/D2TA01009G
Description:

The accumulation and deposition of undesired air bubbles on the surface of microfluidic channels and on underwater functional systems is a major drawback, which worsen their performance. Present de-bubbling strategies are usually complex and require of advanced tools or tedious operation protocols. In this paper, we propose a flexible and easily adaptable strategy to efficiently collect, transport and evacuate the underwater deposited air bubbles by a remote stimulus, using superhydrophobic ferromagnetic particles. The low surface energy of the superhydrophobic ferromagnetic particles assures the trapping of underwater air bubbles, due to their underwater superaerophilicity, while the high magnetisation of the superhydrophobic ferromagnetic particles facilitates the manipulation of the formed particles-bubble system by using an external magnetic field, induced by a simple permanent magnet. The properties of the system were characterised for different bubble deposited surfaces. Remarkably, a 99 % air bubble removal efficiency was observed in microfluidic channels, providing an easy and cheap strategy to address the air bubble accumulation issue faced by microfluidic technology without integrating any advanced tools or protocols in the device.