Liquid Metals News Today

Discover the step-by-step process, unique advantages, and diverse applications of chemical vapor deposition (CVD) and delve into how this technique is revolutionizing the production of 2D materials.

Soft actuators offer several advantages over traditional rigid machines. Among soft materials, liquid metal (LM) is particularly noteworthy for its electro-responsive surface properties that induce flow or morphological changes, making it ideal for soft machines. Although using LM droplets as micropumps is simple, they face challenges in efficient vertical fluid pumping. Here, we report a pump-valve dual-functional LM soft actuator (PDLMA) that can continuously pump liquid upward. Benefiting fro...

Nanoengineering the composition and morphology of functional nanoparticles endows them to perform multiple tasks and functions. An intriguing strategy for creating multifunctional nanomaterials involves the construction of core–shell nanostructures, which have enabled promising applications in biomedicine, energy, sensing, and catalysis. Here, a straightforward nanoengineering approach is presented utilizing liquid metal nanoparticles and galvanic replacement to create diverse core–shell nan...

Conductive hydrogels have been promising candidates for wearable and flexible electronics due to their high flexibility and biocompatibility. However, the previously reported hydrogels with conductivity over 1000 S m−1 usually have poor mechanical properties including low tensile stress (<5 >MPa) and toughness (<2 MJ>m−3). Here, a liquid metal-doped polyvinyl alcohol (PVA-LM) hydrogel is presented, which simultaneously combines ultra-high conductivity (maximum of 217 895 S m−1)...

Liquid metals could be the long-awaited solution to “greening” the chemical industry, according to researchers who tested a new technique they hope can replace energy-intensive chemical engineerin ...

Smart materials that can actively tune their stiffness are of great interest to many fields, including the construction industry, medical devices, industrial machines, and soft robotics. However, developing a material that can offer a large range of stiffness change and rapid tuning remains a challenge. Herein, a liquid metal variable stiffness material (LMVSM) that can actively and rapidly tune its stiffness by applying an external magnetic field or by changing the temperature is developed. The...

Over the past decade, gallium-based liquid metals have attracted enormous attention, emerging as a new cutting-edge multi-functional material for reconfigurable electronics, soft robotics, microfluidics, and biomedical applications, based on utilizing the intrinsic advantages of liquid metal. These unique advantages that combine high electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, biocompatibility, low mechanical compliance, and viscosity all-in-one make the liquid metal applicable for a tremendo...

From unheard-of battery tech to electronics woven into fabric, engineers are making smaller devices more powerful as well as softer, stretchable, and washable. How do they do that, and why does it matter?

From unheard-of battery tech to electronics woven into fabric, engineers are making smaller devices more powerful as well as softer, stretchable, and washable. How do they do that, and why does it matter?

Some metals are in liquid form, the prime example being mercury. But there are also enormous quantities of liquid metal in the Earth’s core, where temperatures are so high that part of the iron is ...