A simple new technique to form interlocking beads of water in ambient conditions could prove valuable for applications in biological sensing, membrane research and harvesting water from fog. Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a method to create air-stable water droplet networks known as droplet interface bilayers. These interconnected water droplets have many roles in biological research because their interfaces simulate cell membranes. Cumbersome fabrication methods, however, have limited their use. “The way they’ve been made since their inception is that two water droplets are formed in an oil bath then brought together while they’re submerged in oil,” said ORNL’s Pat Collier, who led the team’s studypublished in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “Otherwise they would just pop like soap bubbles.” Instead of injecting water droplets into an oil bath, the ORNL research team experimented with placing the droplets on a superhydrophobic surface infused with a coating of oil. The droplets aligned side by side without merging. To the researchers’ surprise, they were also able to form non-coalescing water droplet networks without including lipids in the water solution. Scientists typically incorporate phospholipids into the water mixture, which leads to the formation
The post Novel technique enables air-stable water droplet networks has been published on Technology Org.
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