Preprogramming Floating Time of Liquid Marble

摘要

Non-sticking droplets wrapped with fine hydrophobic particles, namelyliquid marbles, can be transported both on solid and water pool withoutan undesired spill of the inner encapsulated liquid. While the stimuliresponsiverelease of the inner liquid in the target area is proposed, thetime-programmed release is not yet achieved. Herein, the hydrophobicityof nanoclay is modulated via a catalyst-free 1,4-conjugate addition reactionto form liquid marbles. This nanoclay liquid marble is robust and stable inair but collapses on the liquid pool with a specific lifetime. The lifetime ofthe liquid marble can be modulated over seconds to hours scale dependingon the selection of chemically modulated wettability of the nanoclay. Thecritical mechanism of lifetime modulation is responsible for controlling thecoalescence kinetics between the water pool and inner liquid by nanoclays’high diffusion length and chemically varied water spreading potential. TheNC liquid marble’s programmable lifetime to ‘time-bomb’ type drug releaseand cascade chemical reaction is applied—without requiring any externalintervention.