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Related papers: Self-propulsion of chemically-active droplets

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Symmetry breaking is essential for biological microswimmers to achieve locomotion in viscous environments. Such asymmetry in the swimming mechanism enables the generation of directional forces that overcome fluid resistance, leading to…

Fluid Dynamics · Physics 2025-12-29 Anupriya Dutta Roy , Smita S. Sontakke , Arvind Kumar , Ranabir Dey , Anupam Gupta

The multiphase flow of droplets is widespread, both at the industrial and the microscale, for both biological and non-biological applications alike. But the ensemble interactions of such systems are inherently nonlinear and complex,…

Fluid Dynamics · Physics 2022-02-25 Wenyang Jing , Hee-Sun Han

We theoretically derive the amplitude equations for a self-propelled droplet driven by Marangoni flow. As advective flow driven by surface tension gradient is enhanced, the stationary state becomes unstable and the droplet starts to move.…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2015-06-05 Natsuhiko Yoshinaga , Ken H. Nagai , Yutaka Sumino , Hiroyuki Kitahata

Flow transport in confined spaces is ubiquitous in technological processes, ranging from separation and purification of pharmaceutical ingredients by microporous membranes and drug delivery in biomedical treatment to chemical and biomass…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2021-01-01 Xuehua Zhang , Jae Bem You , Gilmar F. Arends , Jiasheng Qian , Yibo Chen , Detlef Lohse , John M. Shaw

Active matter comprised of self-propelled interacting units holds a major promise for extraction of useful work from its seemingly chaotic out-of-equilibrium dynamics. Streamlining active matter to produce work is especially important at…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2021-03-17 Mojtaba Rajabi , Hend Baza , Taras Turiv , Oleg D. Lavrentovich

The controllability of passive microparticles that are advected with the fluid flow generated by an actively controlled one is studied. The particles are assumed to be suspended in a viscous fluid and well separated so that the far-field…

Fluid Dynamics · Physics 2025-02-05 Henry Shum , Marta Zoppello , Michael Astwood , Marco Morandotti

Over the past decade, autophoretic colloids have emerged as a prototypical system for studying self-propelled motion at microscopic scales, with promising applications in microfluidics, micromachinery, and therapeutics. Their motion in a…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2026-05-19 Ursy Makanga , Akhil Varma , Panayiota Katsamba

We study emergent dynamics in a viscous drop subject to interfacial nematic activity. Using hydrodynamic simulations, we show how the interplay of nematodynamics, activity-driven flows and surface deformations gives rise to a sequence of…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2024-04-19 Mohammadhossein Firouznia , David Saintillan

Biological microswimmers, like euglena, deform their body shape to swim through tight confinements having length scales comparable to the microswimmer length scale. Recently, it was shown that self-propelling active droplets can also…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2024-07-08 Subhasish Guchhait , Smita Sontakke , Shubhadeep Mandal , Ranabir Dey

We consider a simple thermodynamically consistent model that captures the self-organized chemomechanical coupling resulting from the interplay between autocatalytically reacting surfactants, the Marangoni effect and wetting dynamics. An…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2025-09-18 Florian Voss , Uwe Thiele

With exquisite precision and reproducibility, cells orchestrate the cooperative action of thousands of nanometer-sized molecular motors to carry out mechanical tasks at much larger length scales, such as cell motility, division and…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2013-01-08 Tim Sanchez , Daniel T. N. Chen , Stephen J. DeCamp , Michael Heymann , Zvonimir Dogic

Droplet microfluidics, in which micro-droplets serve as individual reactors, has enabled a wide range of high-throughput biochemical processes. Unlike solid wells typically used in current biochemical assays, droplets are subject to…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2022-06-03 Ya Gai , Andrea Montessori , Sauro Succi , Sindy K. Y. Tang

We review recent work on active colloids or swimmers, such as self-propelled microorganisms, phoretic colloidal particles, and artificial micro-robotic systems, moving in fluid-like environments. These environments can be water-like and…

Biological Physics · Physics 2016-02-09 Alison E. Patteson , Arvind Gopinath , Paulo E. Arratia

Active colloids, also known as artificial microswimmers, are self-propelled micro and nanoparticles that convert uniform sources of fuel (e.g. chemical) or uniform external driving fields (e.g. magnetic or electric) into directed motion by…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2017-01-30 Songbo Ni , Emanuele Marini , Ivo Buttinoni , Heiko Wolf , Lucio Isa

Chemotaxis and auto-chemotaxis play an important role in many essential biological processes. We present a self-propelling artificial swimmer system which exhibits chemotaxis as well as negative auto-chemotaxis. Oil droplets in an aqueous…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2019-10-15 Chenyu Jin , Carsten Krüger , Corinna C. Maass

In living cells, cycles of formation and dissolution of liquid droplets can mediate biological functions such as DNA repair. However, the minimal physicochemical prerequisite for such droplet oscillations remains elusive. Here, we present a…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2025-03-17 Ivar S. Haugerud , Hidde D. Vuijk , Job Boekhoven , Christoph A. Weber

When a drop of a volatile liquid is deposited on a uniformly heated wettable, thermally conducting substrate, one expects to see it spread into a thin film and evaporate. Contrary to this intuition, due to thermal Marangoni contraction the…

Fluid Dynamics · Physics 2023-06-21 Pallav Kant , Mathieu Souzy , Nayoung Kim , Devaraj van der Meer , Detlef Lohse

Many active biological particles, such as swimming microorganisms or motor-proteins, do work on their environment by going though a periodic sequence of shapes. Interactions between particles can lead to the phase-synchronization of their…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2022-07-26 Brato Chakrabarti , Michael J. Shelley , Sebastian Fürthauer

Biological microswimmers often encounter deformable boundaries in physiological conditions; for instance, the viscoelastic walls of reproductive tract during migration of spermatozoa, or host tissue during early bacterial biofilm formation.…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2025-08-07 Smita S. Sontakke , Aneesha Kajampady , Mohd Suhail Rizvi , Ranabir Dey

Biomolecular condensates play a central role in the spatial organization of living matter. Their formation is now well understood as a form of liquid-liquid phase separation that occurs very far from equilibrium. For instance, they can be…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2024-10-14 Roxanne Berthin , Jacques Fries , Marie Jardat , Vincent Dahirel , Pierre Illien