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Poozesh S, Mezhericher M, Pan Z, Chaudhary U, Manikwar P, Stone HA. Rapid Room-Temperature Aerosol Dehydration Versus Spray Drying: A Novel Paradigm in Biopharmaceutical Drying Technologies. J Pharm Sci 2024; 113:974-981. [PMID: 37802368 DOI: 10.1016/j.xphs.2023.10.003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/22/2023] [Revised: 10/01/2023] [Accepted: 10/01/2023] [Indexed: 10/10/2023]
Abstract
To ensure the high quality of biopharmaceutical products, it is imperative to implement specialized unit operations that effectively safeguard the structural integrity of large molecules. While lyophilization has long been a reliable process, spray drying has recently garnered attention for its particle engineering capabilities for the pulmonary route of administration. However, maintaining the integrity of biologics during spray drying remains a challenge. To address this issue, we explored a novel dehydration system based on aerosol-assisted room-temperature drying of biological formulations recently developed at Princeton University, called Rapid Room-Temperature Aerosol Dehydration. We compared the quality attributes of the bulk powder of biopharmaceutical products manufactured using this drying technology with that of traditional spray drying. For all the fragment antigen-binding formulations tested, in terms of protein degradation and aerosol performance, we were able to achieve a better product quality using this drying technology compared to the spray drying technique. We also highlight areas for improvement in future prototypes and prospective commercial versions of the system. Overall, the offered dehydration system holds potential for improving the quality and diversity of biopharmaceutical products and may pave the way for more efficient and effective production methods in the biopharma industry.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sadegh Poozesh
- Dosage Form Design and Development, BioPharmaceuticals Development, R&D, AstraZeneca, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20878, USA.
| | - Maksim Mezhericher
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA
| | - Zehao Pan
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA
| | - Uzair Chaudhary
- Dosage Form Design and Development, BioPharmaceuticals Development, R&D, AstraZeneca, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20878, USA
| | - Prakash Manikwar
- Dosage Form Design and Development, BioPharmaceuticals Development, R&D, AstraZeneca, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20878, USA
| | - Howard A Stone
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA
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2
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Liu Y, Lo JHY, Nunes JK, Stone HA, Shum HC. High-throughput measurement of elastic moduli of microfibers by rope coiling. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2024; 121:e2303679121. [PMID: 38478687 PMCID: PMC10962939 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2303679121] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/04/2023] [Accepted: 02/05/2024] [Indexed: 03/27/2024] Open
Abstract
There are many fields where it is of interest to measure the elastic moduli of tiny fragile fibers, such as filamentous bacteria, actin filaments, DNA, carbon nanotubes, and functional microfibers. The elastic modulus is typically deduced from a sophisticated tensile test under a microscope, but the throughput is low and limited by the time-consuming and skill-intensive sample loading/unloading. Here, we demonstrate a simple microfluidic method enabling the high-throughput measurement of the elastic moduli of microfibers by rope coiling using a localized compression, where sample loading/unloading are not needed between consecutive measurements. The rope coiling phenomenon occurs spontaneously when a microfiber flows from a small channel into a wide channel. The elastic modulus is determined by measuring either the buckling length or the coiling radius. The throughput of this method, currently 3,300 fibers per hour, is a thousand times higher than that of a tensile tester. We demonstrate the feasibility of the method by testing a nonuniform fiber with axially varying elastic modulus. We also demonstrate its capability for in situ inline measurement in a microfluidic production line. We envisage that high-throughput measurements may facilitate potential applications such as screening or sorting by mechanical properties and real-time control during production of microfibers.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yuan Liu
- Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
| | - Jack H. Y. Lo
- Center for Integrative Petroleum Research, College of Petroleum Engineering and Geosciences, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran31261, Saudi Arabia
| | - Janine K. Nunes
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ08544
| | - Howard A. Stone
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ08544
| | - Ho Cheung Shum
- Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
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3
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Gor GY, Scherer GW, Stone HA. Bacterial spores respond to humidity similarly to hydrogels. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2024; 121:e2320763121. [PMID: 38416680 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2320763121] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/30/2023] [Accepted: 01/09/2024] [Indexed: 03/01/2024] Open
Abstract
Bacterial spores have outstanding properties from the materials science perspective, which allow them to survive extreme environmental conditions. Recent work by [S. G. Harrellson et al., Nature 619, 500-505 (2023)] studied the mechanical properties of Bacillus subtilis spores and the evolution of these properties with the change of humidity. The experimental measurements were interpreted assuming that the spores behave as water-filled porous solids, subjected to hydration forces. Here, we revisit their experimental data using literature data on vapor sorption on spores and ideas from polymer physics. We demonstrate that upon the change of humidity, the spores behave like rubber with respect to their swelling, elasticity, and relaxation times. This picture is consistent with the knowledge of the materials comprising the bacterial cell walls-cross-linked peptidoglycan. Our results provide an interpretation of the mechanics of bacterial spores and can help in developing synthetic materials mimicking the mechanical properties of the spores.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gennady Y Gor
- Otto H. York Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ 07102
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544
| | - George W Scherer
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544
| | - Howard A Stone
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544
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4
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Zaferani M, Song R, Petry S, Stone HA. Building on-chip cytoskeletal circuits via branched microtubule networks. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2024; 121:e2315992121. [PMID: 38232292 PMCID: PMC10823238 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2315992121] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/14/2023] [Accepted: 12/18/2023] [Indexed: 01/19/2024] Open
Abstract
Controllable platforms to engineer robust cytoskeletal scaffolds have the potential to create novel on-chip nanotechnologies. Inspired by axons, we combined the branching microtubule (MT) nucleation pathway with microfabrication to develop "cytoskeletal circuits." This active matter platform allows control over the adaptive self-organization of uniformly polarized MT arrays via geometric features of microstructures designed within a microfluidic confinement. We build and characterize basic elements, including turns and divisions, as well as complex regulatory elements, such as biased division and MT diodes, to construct various MT architectures on a chip. Our platform could be used in diverse applications, ranging from efficient on-chip molecular transport to mechanical nano-actuators. Further, cytoskeletal circuits can serve as a tool to study how the physical environment contributes to MT architecture in living cells.
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Affiliation(s)
- Meisam Zaferani
- Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ08544
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ08544
- Omenn-Darling Bioengineering Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ08544
| | - Ryungeun Song
- Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ08544
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ08544
| | - Sabine Petry
- Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ08544
| | - Howard A. Stone
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ08544
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5
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Slutzky M, Hwang J, Stone HA, Nunes JK. Rayleigh-Taylor Instability in Soft Viscoelastic Solids. Langmuir 2024; 40:1567-1575. [PMID: 38113476 DOI: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.3c02564] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/21/2023]
Abstract
We present an experimental characterization of the gravity-driven Rayleigh-Taylor instability in viscoelastic solids. The instability creates periodic patterns on the free surface of the soft solids that are distinct from the previously studied elastic Rayleigh-Taylor instability. The experimental results are supported by the linear stability analysis reported here. We identify the dependence of the steady-state pattern of deformations on the gel's geometry, complex shear modulus, and surface tension. This study provides quantitative measures applicable to the design of tunable surface textures, soft machines, and 3D structures.
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Affiliation(s)
- Malcolm Slutzky
- Department of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, United States
| | - Jonghyun Hwang
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, United States
| | - Howard A Stone
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, United States
| | - Janine K Nunes
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, United States
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6
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Li Y, Chen Y, Li Y, Stone HA, Pahlavan AA, Granick S. Volatile Droplets on Water are Sculpted by Vigorous Marangoni-Driven Subphase Flow. Langmuir 2023; 39:16272-16283. [PMID: 37948043 DOI: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.3c01678] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/12/2023]
Abstract
The shapes of highly volatile oil-on-water droplets become strongly asymmetric when they are out of equilibrium. The unsaturated organic vapor atmosphere causes evaporation and leads to a strong Marangoni flow in the bath, unlike that previously seen in the literature. Inspecting these shapes experimentally on millisecond and submillimeter time and length scales and theoretically by scaling arguments, we confirm that Marangoni-driven convection in the subphase mechanically stresses the droplet edges to an extent that increases for organic droplets of smaller contact angle and accordingly smaller thickness. The viscous stress generated by the subphase overcomes the thermodynamic Laplace pressure. The oil droplets develop copious regularly spaced fingers, and these fingers develop spike-shaped and branched treelike structures. Unlike this behavior for single-component (surfactant-free) oil droplets, droplets composed of two miscible (surfactant-free) organic liquids develop a rim of the less volatile component along the droplet perimeter, from which jets of monodisperse smaller droplets eject periodically due to the Rayleigh-Plateau instability. When evaporation shrinks droplets to μm size, their shapes fluctuate chaotically, and ellipsoidal shapes rupture into smaller daughter droplets when subphase convection flow pulls them in opposite directions. The shape of the evaporating oil droplets is kneaded and sculpted by vigorous flow in the water subphase.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yitan Li
- Center for Soft and Living Matter, Institute for Basic Science (IBS), Ulsan 44919, South Korea
| | - Yuguang Chen
- College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871, P. R. China
| | - Yan Li
- College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871, P. R. China
| | - Howard A Stone
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, United States
| | - Amir A Pahlavan
- Department of Mechanical Engineering and Material Science, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06511, United States
| | - Steve Granick
- Center for Soft and Living Matter, Institute for Basic Science (IBS), Ulsan 44919, South Korea
- Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts 01003, United States
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7
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de Souza JP, Stone HA. Protein condensation regulates water availability in cells. Nature 2023; 623:698-699. [PMID: 37853191 DOI: 10.1038/d41586-023-03098-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/20/2023]
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8
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Sun S, Xue N, Aime S, Kim H, Tang J, McKinley GH, Stone HA, Weitz DA. Anomalous crystalline ordering of particles in a viscoelastic fluid under high shear. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2023; 120:e2304272120. [PMID: 37774096 PMCID: PMC10556622 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2304272120] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/21/2023] [Accepted: 07/26/2023] [Indexed: 10/01/2023] Open
Abstract
Addition of particles to a viscoelastic suspension dramatically alters the properties of the mixture, particularly when it is sheared or otherwise processed. Shear-induced stretching of the polymers results in elastic stress that causes a substantial increase in measured viscosity with increasing shear, and an attractive interaction between particles, leading to their chaining. At even higher shear rates, the flow becomes unstable, even in the absence of particles. This instability makes it very difficult to determine the properties of a particle suspension. Here, we use a fully immersed parallel plate geometry to measure the high-shear-rate behavior of a suspension of particles in a viscoelastic fluid. We find an unexpected separation of the particles within the suspension resulting in the formation of a layer of particles in the center of the cell. Remarkably, monodisperse particles form a crystalline layer which dramatically alters the shear instability. By combining measurements of the velocity field and torque fluctuations, we show that this solid layer disrupts the flow instability and introduces a single-frequency component to the torque fluctuations that reflects a dominant velocity pattern in the flow. These results highlight the interplay between particles and a suspending viscoelastic fluid at very high shear rates.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sijie Sun
- John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA02138
| | - Nan Xue
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ08544
- Department of Materials, ETH Zürich, Zürich8093, Switzerland
- Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY14853
- Laboratory of Atomic and Solid-State Physics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY14853
| | - Stefano Aime
- John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA02138
- Molecular, Macromolecular Chemistry, and Materials, École supérieure de physique et de chimie industrielles de la Ville de Paris (ESPCI), 10 Rue Vauquelin, 75005Paris, France
| | - Hyoungsoo Kim
- John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA02138
- Department of Mechanical Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon34141, Republic of Korea
| | - Jizhou Tang
- John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA02138
- State Key Laboratory of Marine Geology, Tongji University, Shanghai201804, China
| | - Gareth H. McKinley
- Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA02139
| | - Howard A. Stone
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ08544
| | - David A. Weitz
- John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA02138
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9
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Roggeveen JV, Wang H, Shi Z, Stone HA. A calibration-free model of micropipette aspiration for measuring properties of protein condensates. Biophys J 2023:S0006-3495(23)00621-5. [PMID: 37789618 DOI: 10.1016/j.bpj.2023.09.018] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/24/2023] [Revised: 08/13/2023] [Accepted: 09/27/2023] [Indexed: 10/05/2023] Open
Abstract
There is growing evidence that biological condensates, which are also referred to as membraneless organelles, and liquid-liquid phase separation play critical roles regulating many important cellular processes. Understanding the roles these condensates play in biology is predicated on understanding the material properties of these complex substances. Recently, micropipette aspiration (MPA) has been proposed as a tool to assay the viscosity and surface tension of condensates. This tool allows the measurement of both material properties in one relatively simple experiment, in contrast to many other techniques that only provide one or a ratio of parameters. While this technique has been commonly used in the literature to determine the material properties of membrane-bound objects dating back decades, the model describing the dynamics of MPA for objects with an external membrane does not correctly capture the hydrodynamics of unbounded fluids, leading to a calibration parameter several orders of magnitude larger than predicted. In this work we derive a new model for MPA of biological condensates that does not require any calibration and is consistent with the hydrodynamics of the MPA geometry. We validate the predictions of this model by conducting MPA experiments on a standard silicone oil of known material properties and are able to predict the viscosity and surface tension using MPA. Finally, we reanalyze with this new model the MPA data presented in previous works for condensates formed from LAF-1 RGG domains.
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Affiliation(s)
- James V Roggeveen
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey
| | - Huan Wang
- Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey
| | - Zheng Shi
- Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey.
| | - Howard A Stone
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey.
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10
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Christensen AH, Gupta A, Chen G, Peters WS, Knoblauch M, Stone HA, Jensen KH. Locally optimal geometry for surface-enhanced diffusion. Phys Rev E 2023; 108:045101. [PMID: 37978587 DOI: 10.1103/physreve.108.045101] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/08/2022] [Accepted: 08/16/2023] [Indexed: 11/19/2023]
Abstract
Molecular diffusion in bulk liquids proceeds according to Fick's law, which stipulates that the particle current is proportional to the conductive area. This constrains the efficiency of filtration systems in which both selectivity and permeability are valued. Previous studies have demonstrated that interactions between the diffusing species and solid boundaries can enhance or reduce particle transport relative to bulk conditions. However, only cases that preserve the monotonic relationship between particle current and conductive area are known. In this paper, we expose a system in which the diffusive current increases when the conductive area diminishes. These examples are based on the century-old theory of a charged particle interacting with an electrical double layer. This surprising discovery could improve the efficiency of filtration and may advance our understanding of biological pore structures.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Ankur Gupta
- Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309, USA
| | - Guang Chen
- Department of Advanced Manufacturing and Robotics, College of Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871, People's Republic of China
| | - Winfried S Peters
- School of Biological Sciences, Washington State University, Pullman, Washington 99164, USA
| | - Michael Knoblauch
- School of Biological Sciences, Washington State University, Pullman, Washington 99164, USA
| | - Howard A Stone
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA
| | - Kaare H Jensen
- Department of Physics, Technical University of Denmark, DK-2800 Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark
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11
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Yang L, Pahlavan AA, Stone HA, Bain CD. Evaporation of alcohol droplets on surfaces in moist air. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2023; 120:e2302653120. [PMID: 37695912 PMCID: PMC10515150 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2302653120] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/15/2023] [Accepted: 08/01/2023] [Indexed: 09/13/2023] Open
Abstract
Droplets of alcohol-based formulations are common in applications from sanitizing sprays to printing inks. However, our understanding of the drying dynamics of these droplets on surfaces and the influence of ambient humidity is still very limited. Here, we report the drying dynamics of picoliter droplets of isopropyl alcohol deposited on a surface under controlled humidity. Condensation of water vapor in the ambient environment onto alcohol droplets leads to unexpectedly complex drying behavior. As relative humidity (RH) increases, we observed a variety of phenomena including enhanced spreading, nonmonotonic changes in the drying time, the formation of pancake-like shapes that suppress the coffee-ring effect, and the formation of water-rich films around an alcohol-rich drop. We developed a lubrication model that accounts for the coupling between the flow field within the drop, the shape of the drop, and the vapor concentration field. The model reproduces many of the experimentally observed morphological and dynamic features, revealing the presence of unusually large spatial compositional gradients within the evaporating droplet and surface-tension-gradient-driven flows arising from water condensation/evaporation at the surface of the droplet. One unexpected feature from the simulation is that water can evaporate and condense concurrently in different parts of the drop, providing fundamental insights that simpler models based on average fluxes lack. We further observed rim instabilities at higher RH that are well-described by a model based on the Rayleigh-Plateau instability. Our findings have implications for the testing and use of alcohol-based disinfectant sprays and printing inks.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lisong Yang
- Department of Chemistry, Durham University, DurhamDH1 3LE, UK
| | - Amir A. Pahlavan
- Department of Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science, Yale University, New Haven, CT06511
| | - Howard A. Stone
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ08544
| | - Colin D. Bain
- Department of Chemistry, Durham University, DurhamDH1 3LE, UK
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12
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Somasundar A, Qin B, Shim S, Bassler BL, Stone HA. Diffusiophoretic Particle Penetration into Bacterial Biofilms. ACS Appl Mater Interfaces 2023; 15:33263-33272. [PMID: 37400078 PMCID: PMC10360038 DOI: 10.1021/acsami.3c03190] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/05/2023] [Accepted: 05/25/2023] [Indexed: 07/05/2023]
Abstract
Bacterial biofilms are communities of cells adhered to surfaces. These communities represent a predominant form of bacterial life on Earth. A defining feature of a biofilm is the three-dimensional extracellular polymer matrix that protects resident cells by acting as a mechanical barrier to the penetration of chemicals, such as antimicrobials. Beyond being recalcitrant to antibiotic treatment, biofilms are notoriously difficult to remove from surfaces. A promising, but relatively underexplored, approach to biofilm control is to disrupt the extracellular polymer matrix by enabling penetration of particles to increase the susceptibility of biofilms to antimicrobials. In this work, we investigate externally imposed chemical gradients as a mechanism to transport polystyrene particles into bacterial biofilms. We show that preconditioning the biofilm with a prewash step using deionized (DI) water is essential for altering the biofilm so it takes up the micro- and nanoparticles by the application of a further chemical gradient created by an electrolyte. Using different particles and chemicals, we document the transport behavior that leads to particle motion into the biofilm and its further reversal out of the biofilm. Our results demonstrate the importance of chemical gradients in disrupting the biofilm matrix and regulating particle transport in crowded macromolecular environments, and suggest potential applications of particle transport and delivery in other physiological systems.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ambika Somasundar
- Department
of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, United States
- Princeton
Institute for the Science and Technology of Materials, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, United States
| | - Boyang Qin
- Department
of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, United States
- Department
of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, United States
| | - Suin Shim
- Department
of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, United States
| | - Bonnie L. Bassler
- Department
of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, United States
- Howard
Hughes Medical Institute, Chevy
Chase, Maryland 20815, United States
| | - Howard A. Stone
- Department
of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, United States
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13
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Stone HA, Shelley MJ, Boyko E. A note about convected time derivatives for flows of complex fluids. Soft Matter 2023. [PMID: 37404018 DOI: 10.1039/d3sm00497j] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 07/06/2023]
Abstract
We present a direct derivation of the typical time derivatives used in a continuum description of complex fluid flows, harnessing the principles of the kinematics of line elements. The evolution of the microstructural conformation tensor in a flow and the physical interpretation of different derivatives then follow naturally.
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Affiliation(s)
- Howard A Stone
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, New Jersey 08544, USA.
| | - Michael J Shelley
- Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University, New York, NY 10012, USA.
- Center for Computational Biology, Flatiron Institute, Simons Foundation, New York, NY 10010, USA
| | - Evgeniy Boyko
- Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, 3200003, Israel.
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14
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Harrellson SG, DeLay MS, Chen X, Cavusoglu AH, Dworkin J, Stone HA, Sahin O. Hydration solids. Nature 2023; 619:500-505. [PMID: 37286609 PMCID: PMC10530534 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06144-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/05/2017] [Accepted: 04/27/2023] [Indexed: 06/09/2023]
Abstract
Hygroscopic biological matter in plants, fungi and bacteria make up a large fraction of Earth's biomass1. Although metabolically inert, these water-responsive materials exchange water with the environment and actuate movement2-5 and have inspired technological uses6,7. Despite the variety in chemical composition, hygroscopic biological materials across multiple kingdoms of life exhibit similar mechanical behaviours including changes in size and stiffness with relative humidity8-13. Here we report atomic force microscopy measurements on the hygroscopic spores14,15 of a common soil bacterium and develop a theory that captures the observed equilibrium, non-equilibrium and water-responsive mechanical behaviours, finding that these are controlled by the hydration force16-18. Our theory based on the hydration force explains an extreme slowdown of water transport and successfully predicts a strong nonlinear elasticity and a transition in mechanical properties that differs from glassy and poroelastic behaviours. These results indicate that water not only endows biological matter with fluidity but also can-through the hydration force-control macroscopic properties and give rise to a 'hydration solid' with unusual properties. A large fraction of biological matter could belong to this distinct class of solid matter.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Michael S DeLay
- Department of Biological Sciences, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
| | - Xi Chen
- Department of Biological Sciences, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
- Advanced Science Research Center (ASRC) at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, New York, NY, USA
| | - Ahmet-Hamdi Cavusoglu
- Department of Chemical Engineering, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
- Merck Digital Sciences Studio (MDSS), Newark, NJ, USA
| | - Jonathan Dworkin
- Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
| | - Howard A Stone
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
| | - Ozgur Sahin
- Department of Physics, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.
- Department of Biological Sciences, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.
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15
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Gouveia B, Setru SU, King MR, Hamlin A, Stone HA, Shaevitz JW, Petry S. Acentrosomal spindles assemble from branching microtubule nucleation near chromosomes in Xenopus laevis egg extract. Nat Commun 2023; 14:3696. [PMID: 37344488 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-39041-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/15/2022] [Accepted: 05/08/2023] [Indexed: 06/23/2023] Open
Abstract
Microtubules are generated at centrosomes, chromosomes, and within spindles during cell division. Whereas microtubule nucleation at the centrosome is well characterized, much remains unknown about where, when, and how microtubules are nucleated at chromosomes. To address these questions, we reconstitute microtubule nucleation from purified chromosomes in meiotic Xenopus egg extract and find that chromosomes alone can form spindles. We visualize microtubule nucleation near chromosomes using total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy to find that this occurs through branching microtubule nucleation. By inhibiting molecular motors, we find that the organization of the resultant polar branched networks is consistent with a theoretical model where the effectors for branching nucleation are released by chromosomes, forming a concentration gradient that spatially biases branching microtbule nucleation. In the presence of motors, these branched networks are ultimately organized into functional spindles, where the number of emergent spindle poles scales with the number of chromosomes and total chromatin area.
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Affiliation(s)
- Bernardo Gouveia
- Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, 08544, USA
| | - Sagar U Setru
- Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, 08544, USA
| | - Matthew R King
- Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, 08544, USA
| | - Aaron Hamlin
- Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, 08544, USA
| | - Howard A Stone
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, 08544, USA
| | - Joshua W Shaevitz
- Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, 08544, USA
- Department of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, 08544, USA
| | - Sabine Petry
- Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, 08544, USA.
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16
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Shimizu TS, Kiers ET, Stone HA. Exploring the dynamics of vascular adaptation. eLife 2023; 12:88052. [PMID: 37227267 DOI: 10.7554/elife.88052] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/26/2023] Open
Abstract
A combination of in toto imaging and theory suggests a new mechanism for the remodeling of veins in vascular networks.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - E Toby Kiers
- Amsterdam Institute for Life and Environment, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands
| | - Howard A Stone
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, United States
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17
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Abbasi N, Nunes JK, Pan Z, Dethe T, Shum HC, Košmrlj A, Stone HA. Flows of a nonequilibrated aqueous two-phase system in a microchannel. Soft Matter 2023; 19:3551-3561. [PMID: 37144458 DOI: 10.1039/d3sm00233k] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/06/2023]
Abstract
Liquid-liquid phase separation is a rich and dynamic process, which recently has gained new interest, especially in biology and for material synthesis. In this work, we experimentally show that co-flow of a nonequilibrated aqueous two-phase system within a planar flow-focusing microfluidic device results in a three-dimensional flow, as the two nonequilibrated solutions move downstream along the length of the microchannel. After the system reaches steady-state, invasion fronts from the outer stream are formed along the top and bottom walls of the microfluidic device. The invasion fronts advance towards the center of the channel, until they merge. We first show by tuning the concentration of polymer species within the system that the formation of these fronts is due to liquid-liquid phase separation. Moreover, the rate of invasion from the outer stream increases with increasing polymer concentrations in the streams. We hypothesize the invasion front formation and growth is driven by Marangoni flow induced by the polymer concentration gradient along the width of the channel, as the system is undergoing phase separation. In addition, we show how at various downstream positions the system reaches its steady-state configuration once the two fluid streams flow side-by-side in the channel.
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Affiliation(s)
- Niki Abbasi
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.
| | - Janine K Nunes
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.
| | - Zehao Pan
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.
| | - Tejas Dethe
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.
| | - Ho Cheung Shum
- Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
| | - Andrej Košmrlj
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.
- Princeton Materials Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
| | - Howard A Stone
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.
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18
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Shen Y, Liu Y, Nunes JK, Wang C, Xu M, To MKT, Stone HA, Shum HC. Fibro-Gel: An All-Aqueous Hydrogel Consisting of Microfibers with Tunable Release Profile and its Application in Wound Healing. Adv Mater 2023; 35:e2211637. [PMID: 36789886 DOI: 10.1002/adma.202211637] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/12/2022] [Revised: 02/06/2023] [Indexed: 05/12/2023]
Abstract
Injectable hydrogels are valuable tools in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine due to their unique advantages of injectability with minimal invasiveness and usability for irregularly shaped sites. However, it remains challenging to achieve scalable manufacturing together with matching physicochemical properties and on-demand drug release for a high level of control over biophysical and biomedical cues to direct endogenous cells. Here, the use of an injectable fibro-gel is demonstrated, a water-filled network of entangled hydrogel microfibers, whose physicochemical properties and drug release profiles can be tailored to overcome these shortcomings. This fibro-gel exhibits favorable in vitro biocompatibility and the capability to aid vascularization. The potential use of the fibro-gel for advancing tissue regeneration is explored with a mice excision skin model. Preliminary in vivo tests indicate that the fibro-gel promotes wound healing and new healthy tissue regeneration at a faster rate than a commercial gel. Moreover, it is demonstrated that the release of distinct drugs at different rates can further accelerate wound healing with higher efficiency, by using a two-layer fibro-gel model. The combination of injectability and tailorable properties of this fibro-gel offers a promising approach in biomedical fields such as therapeutic delivery, medical dressings, and 3D tissue scaffolds for tissue engineering.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yanting Shen
- Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong SAR, China
| | - Yuan Liu
- Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong SAR, China
| | - Janine K Nunes
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, 08544, USA
| | - Chenmin Wang
- Department of Orthopaedics and Traumatology, LKS Faculty of Medicine, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong SAR, China
| | - Miao Xu
- Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong SAR, China
| | - Michael K T To
- Department of Orthopaedics and Traumatology, LKS Faculty of Medicine, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong SAR, China
| | - Howard A Stone
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, 08544, USA
| | - Ho Cheung Shum
- Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong SAR, China
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19
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Roggeveen JV, Stone HA, Kurzthaler C. Transport of a passive scalar in wide channels with surface topography: An asymptotic theory. J Phys Condens Matter 2023; 35. [PMID: 37073470 DOI: 10.1088/1361-648x/acc8ad] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/16/2022] [Accepted: 03/29/2023] [Indexed: 05/03/2023]
Abstract
We generalize classical dispersion theory for a passive scalar to derive an asymptotic long-time convection-diffusion equation for a solute suspended in a wide, structured channel and subject to a steady low-Reynolds-number shear flow. Our asymptotic theory relies on a domain perturbation approach for small roughness amplitudes of the channel and holds for general surface shapes expandable as a Fourier series. We determine an anisotropic dispersion tensor, which depends on the characteristic wavelengths and amplitude of the surface structure. For surfaces whose corrugations are tilted with respect to the applied flow direction, we find that dispersion along the principal direction (i.e. the principal eigenvector of the dispersion tensor) is at an angle to the main flow direction and becomes enhanced relative to classical Taylor dispersion. In contrast, dispersion perpendicular to it can decrease compared to the short-time diffusivity of the particles. Furthermore, for an arbitrary surface shape represented in terms of a Fourier decomposition, we find that each Fourier mode contributes at leading order a linearly-independent correction to the classical Taylor dispersion diffusion tensor.
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Affiliation(s)
- J V Roggeveen
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, United States of America
| | - H A Stone
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, United States of America
| | - C Kurzthaler
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, United States of America
- Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, 01187 Dresden, Germany
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20
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Jiang Y, Pyo A, Brangwynne CP, Stone HA, Wingreen NS, Zhang Y. Interface resistance of biomolecular condensates. Biophys J 2023; 122:442a. [PMID: 36784270 DOI: 10.1016/j.bpj.2022.11.2388] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/12/2023] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Yoyo Jiang
- Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA
| | - Andrew Pyo
- Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
| | - Clifford P Brangwynne
- Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
| | - Howard A Stone
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
| | - Ned S Wingreen
- Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
| | - Yaojun Zhang
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA
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21
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Bazazi P, Stone HA, Hejazi SH. Dynamics of Droplet Pinch-Off at Emulsified Oil-Water Interfaces: Interplay between Interfacial Viscoelasticity and Capillary Forces. Phys Rev Lett 2023; 130:034001. [PMID: 36763387 DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.130.034001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/05/2022] [Revised: 10/16/2022] [Accepted: 12/20/2022] [Indexed: 06/18/2023]
Abstract
The presence of submicrometer structures at liquid-fluid interfaces modifies the properties of many science and technological systems by lowering the interfacial tension, creating tangential Marangoni stresses, and/or inducing surface viscoelasticity. Here we experimentally study the break-up of a liquid filament of a silica nanoparticle dispersion in a background oil phase that contains surfactant assemblies. Although self-similar power-law pinch-off is well documented for threads of Newtonian fluids, we report that when a viscoelastic layer is formed in situ at the interface, the pinch-off dynamics follows an exponential decay. Recently, such exponential neck thinning was found theoretically when surface viscous effects were taken into account. We introduce a simple approach to calculate the effective relaxation time of viscoelastic interfaces and estimate the thickness of the interfacial layer and the viscoelastic properties of liquid-fluid interfaces, where the direct measurement of interfacial rheology is not possible.
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Affiliation(s)
- Parisa Bazazi
- Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta T2N 1N, Canada
| | - Howard A Stone
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA
| | - S Hossein Hejazi
- Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta T2N 1N, Canada
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22
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Kaneelil PR, Pahlavan AA, Xue N, Stone HA. Three-Dimensional Self-Similarity of Coalescing Viscous Drops in the Thin-Film Regime. Phys Rev Lett 2022; 129:144501. [PMID: 36240413 DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.129.144501] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/18/2022] [Accepted: 09/08/2022] [Indexed: 06/16/2023]
Abstract
Coalescence and breakup of drops are classic problems in fluid physics that often involve self-similarity and singularity formation. While the coalescence of suspended drops is axisymmetric, the coalescence of drops on a substrate is inherently three-dimensional. Yet, studies so far have only considered this problem in two dimensions. In this Letter, we use interferometry to reveal the three-dimensional shape of the interface as two drops coalescence on a substrate. We unify the known scaling laws in this problem within the thin-film approximation and find a three-dimensional self-similarity that enables us to describe the anisotropic shape of the dynamic interface with a universal curve.
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Affiliation(s)
- Paul R Kaneelil
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA
| | - Amir A Pahlavan
- Department of Mechanical Engineering and Material Science, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06511, USA
| | - Nan Xue
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA
- Department of Materials, ETH Zürich, 8093 Zürich, Switzerland
| | - Howard A Stone
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA
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23
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Gouveia B, Kim Y, Shaevitz JW, Petry S, Stone HA, Brangwynne CP. Capillary forces generated by biomolecular condensates. Nature 2022; 609:255-264. [PMID: 36071192 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-05138-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 63] [Impact Index Per Article: 31.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/28/2021] [Accepted: 07/25/2022] [Indexed: 12/21/2022]
Abstract
Liquid-liquid phase separation and related phase transitions have emerged as generic mechanisms in living cells for the formation of membraneless compartments or biomolecular condensates. The surface between two immiscible phases has an interfacial tension, generating capillary forces that can perform work on the surrounding environment. Here we present the physical principles of capillarity, including examples of how capillary forces structure multiphase condensates and remodel biological substrates. As with other mechanisms of intracellular force generation, for example, molecular motors, capillary forces can influence biological processes. Identifying the biomolecular determinants of condensate capillarity represents an exciting frontier, bridging soft matter physics and cell biology.
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Affiliation(s)
- Bernardo Gouveia
- Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
| | - Yoonji Kim
- Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
| | | | - Sabine Petry
- Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
| | - Howard A Stone
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.
| | - Clifford P Brangwynne
- Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA. .,The Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Princeton, NJ, USA.
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24
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Huang S, Colosqui CE, Young YN, Stone HA. The effects of surface hydration on capillary adhesion under nanoscale confinement. Soft Matter 2022; 18:4786-4791. [PMID: 35708007 DOI: 10.1039/d2sm00473a] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/15/2023]
Abstract
Nanoscale phenomena such as surface hydration and the molecular layering of liquids under strong nanoscale confinement play a critical role in liquid-mediated surface adhesion that is not accounted for by available models, which assume a uniform liquid density with or without considering surface forces and associated disjoining pressure effects. This work introduces an alternative theoretical description that via the potential of mean force (PMF) considers the strong spatial variation of the liquid number density under nanoscale confinement. This alternative description based on the PMF predicts a dual effect of surface hydration by producing: (i) strong spatial oscillations of the local liquid density and pressure and, more importantly, (ii) a configuration-dependent liquid-solid surface energy under nanoscale confinement. Theoretical analysis and molecular dynamics simulations for the case of an axisymmetric water bridge with nanoscale heights show that the latter hydration effect is critical for the accurate prediction of the surface energy and adhesion forces when a small volume of liquid is nanoscopically confined by two surfaces approaching contact.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sijia Huang
- Applied Mathematics & Statistics Department, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794, USA
| | - Carlos E Colosqui
- Applied Mathematics & Statistics Department, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794, USA
- Mechanical Engineering Department, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794, USA.
| | - Y-N Young
- Department of Mathematical Sciences, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ 07102, USA
| | - Howard A Stone
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
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25
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Manna RK, Shklyaev OE, Stone HA, Balazs AC. Solutal-buoyancy-driven intertwining and rotation of patterned elastic sheets. PNAS Nexus 2022; 1:pgac072. [PMID: 36713315 PMCID: PMC9802271 DOI: 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgac072] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/24/2022] [Accepted: 05/24/2022] [Indexed: 06/18/2023]
Abstract
The intertwining of strands into 3D spirals is ubiquitous in biology, enabling functions from information storage to maintenance of cell structure and directed locomotion. In synthetic systems, entwined fibers can provide superior mechanical properties and act as artificial muscle or structural reinforcements. Unlike structures in nature, the entwinement of synthetic materials typically requires application of an external stimulus, such as mechanical actuation, light, or a magnetic field. Herein, we use computational modeling to design microscale sheets that mimic biology by transducing chemical energy into mechanical action, and thereby self-organize and interlink into 3D spirals, which spontaneously rotate. These flexible sheets are immersed in a fluid-filled microchamber that encompasses an immobilized patch of catalysts on the bottom wall. The sheets themselves can be passive or active (coated with catalyst). Catalytic reactions in the solution generate products that occupy different volumes than the reactants. The resulting density variations exert a force on the fluid (solutal buoyancy force) that causes motion, which in turn drives the interlinking and collective swirling of the sheets. The individual sheets do not rotate; rotation only occurs when the sheets are interlinked. This level of autonomous, coordinated 3D structural organization, intertwining, and rotation is unexpected in synthetic materials systems operating without external controls. Using physical arguments, we identify dimensionless ratios that are useful in scaling these ideas to other systems. These findings are valuable for creating materials that act as "machines", and directing soft matter to undergo self-sustained, multistep assembly that is governed by intrinsic chemical reactions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Raj Kumar Manna
- Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA
| | - Oleg E Shklyaev
- Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA
| | - Howard A Stone
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
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26
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27
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Guzowski J, Buda RJ, Costantini M, Ćwiklińska M, Garstecki P, Stone HA. From dynamic self-organization to avalanching instabilities in soft-granular threads. Soft Matter 2022; 18:1801-1818. [PMID: 35166293 PMCID: PMC8889560 DOI: 10.1039/d1sm01350e] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/17/2021] [Accepted: 12/20/2021] [Indexed: 06/14/2023]
Abstract
We study the dynamics of threads of monodisperse droplets, including droplet chains and multi-chains, in which the droplets are interconnected by capillary bridges of another immiscible liquid phase. This system represents wet soft-granular matter - a class of granular materials in which the grains are soft and wetted by thin fluid films-with other examples including wet granular hydrogels or foams. In contrast to wet granular matter with rigid grains (e.g., wet sand), studied previously, the deformability of the grains raises the number of available metastable states and facilitates rearrangements which allow for reorganization and self-assembly of the system under external drive, e.g., applied via viscous forces. We use a co-flow configuration to generate a variety of unique low-dimensional regular granular patterns, intermediate between 1D and 2D, ranging from linear chains and chains with periodically occurring folds to multi-chains and segmented structures including chains of finite length. In particular, we observe that the partially folded chains self-organize via limit cycle of displacements and rearrangements occurring at a frequency self-adapted to the rate of build-up of compressive strain in the chain induced by the viscous forces. Upon weakening of the capillary arrest of the droplets, we observe spontaneous fluidization of the quasi-solid structures and avalanches of rearrangements. We identify two types of fluidization-induced instabilities and rationalize them in terms of a competition between advection and propagation. While we use aqueous droplets as the grains we demonstrate that the reported mechanisms of adaptive self-assembly apply to other types of soft granular systems including foams and microgels. We discuss possible application of the reported quasi-1D compartmentalized structures in tissue engineering, bioprinting and materials science.
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Affiliation(s)
- J Guzowski
- Institute of Physical Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, ul. Kasprzaka 44/52, 01-224 Warsaw, Poland.
| | - R J Buda
- Institute of Physical Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, ul. Kasprzaka 44/52, 01-224 Warsaw, Poland.
| | - M Costantini
- Institute of Physical Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, ul. Kasprzaka 44/52, 01-224 Warsaw, Poland.
| | - M Ćwiklińska
- Institute of Physical Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, ul. Kasprzaka 44/52, 01-224 Warsaw, Poland.
| | - P Garstecki
- Institute of Physical Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, ul. Kasprzaka 44/52, 01-224 Warsaw, Poland.
| | - H A Stone
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, 08544 NJ, USA
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28
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Abstract
We report an experimental study of the shear-induced migration of flexible fibers in suspensions confined between two parallel plates. Non-Brownian fiber suspensions are imaged in a rheo-microscopy setup, where the top and the bottom plates counter-rotate and create a Couette flow. Initially, the fibers are near the bottom plate due to sedimentation. Under shear, the fibers move with the flow and migrate towards the center plane between the two walls. Statistical properties of the fibers, such as the mean values of the positions, orientations, and end-to-end lengths of the fibers, are used to characterize the behaviors of the fibers. A dimensionless parameter Λeff, which compares the hydrodynamic shear stress and the fiber stiffness, is used to analyze the effective flexibility of the fibers. The observations show that the fibers that are more likely to bend exhibit faster migration. As Λeff increases (softer fibers and stronger shear stresses), the fibers tend to align in the flow direction and the motions of the fibers transition from tumbling and rolling to bending. The bending fibers drift away from the walls to the center plane. Further increasing Λeff leads to more coiled fiber shapes, and the bending is more frequent and with larger magnitudes, which leads to more rapid migration towards the center. Different behaviors of the fibers are quantified with Λeff, and the structures and the dynamics of the fibers are correlated with the migration.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nan Xue
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.
| | - Janine K Nunes
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.
| | - Howard A Stone
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.
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29
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Perazzo A, Peng Z, Young YN, Feng Z, Wood DK, Higgins JM, Stone HA. The effect of rigid cells on blood viscosity: linking rheology and sickle cell anemia. Soft Matter 2022; 18:554-565. [PMID: 34931640 PMCID: PMC8925304 DOI: 10.1039/d1sm01299a] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/14/2023]
Abstract
Sickle cell anemia (SCA) is a disease that affects red blood cells (RBCs). Healthy RBCs are highly deformable objects that under flow can penetrate blood capillaries smaller than their typical size. In SCA there is an impaired deformability of some cells, which are much stiffer and with a different shape than healthy cells, and thereby affect regular blood flow. It is known that blood from patients with SCA has a higher viscosity than normal blood. However, it is unclear how the rigidity of cells is related to the viscosity of blood, in part because SCA patients are often treated with transfusions of variable amounts of normal RBCs and only a fraction of cells will be stiff. Here, we report systematic experimental measurements of the viscosity of a suspension varying the fraction of rigid particles within a suspension of healthy cells. We also perform systematic numerical simulations of a similar mixed suspension of soft RBCs, rigid particles, and their hydrodynamic interactions. Our results show that there is a rheological signature within blood viscosity to clearly identify the fraction of rigidified cells among healthy deformable cells down to a 5% volume fraction of rigidified cells. Although aggregation of RBCs is known to affect blood rheology at low shear rates, and our simulations mimic this effect via an adhesion potential, we show that such adhesion, or aggregation, is unlikely to provide a physical rationalization for the viscosity increase observed in the experiments at moderate shear rates due to rigidified cells. Through numerical simulations, we also highlight that most of the viscosity increase of the suspension is due to the rigidity of the particles rather than their sickled or spherical shape. Our results are relevant to better characterize SCA, provide useful insights relevant to rheological consequences of blood transfusions, and, more generally, extend to the rheology of mixed suspensions having particles with different rigidities, as well as offering possibilities for developments in the field of soft material composites.
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Affiliation(s)
- Antonio Perazzo
- Novaflux Inc., Princeton, NJ 08540, USA
- Advanced BioDevices LLC, Princeton, NJ 08540, USA
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.
| | - Zhangli Peng
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL 60607, USA
| | - Y-N Young
- Department of Mathematical Sciences, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ 07102, USA
| | - Zhe Feng
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL 60607, USA
| | - David K Wood
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA
| | - John M Higgins
- Center for Systems Biology and Department of Pathology, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Department of Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02114, USA
| | - Howard A Stone
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.
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30
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Kurzthaler C, Mandal S, Bhattacharjee T, Löwen H, Datta SS, Stone HA. A geometric criterion for the optimal spreading of active polymers in porous media. Nat Commun 2021; 12:7088. [PMID: 34873164 PMCID: PMC8648790 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-26942-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/28/2021] [Accepted: 10/21/2021] [Indexed: 11/26/2022] Open
Abstract
Efficient navigation through disordered, porous environments poses a major challenge for swimming microorganisms and future synthetic cargo-carriers. We perform Brownian dynamics simulations of active stiff polymers undergoing run-reverse dynamics, and so mimic bacterial swimming, in porous media. In accord with experiments of Escherichia coli, the polymer dynamics are characterized by trapping phases interrupted by directed hopping motion through the pores. Our findings show that the spreading of active agents in porous media can be optimized by tuning their run lengths, which we rationalize using a coarse-grained model. More significantly, we discover a geometric criterion for the optimal spreading, which emerges when their run lengths are comparable to the longest straight path available in the porous medium. Our criterion unifies results for porous media with disparate pore sizes and shapes and for run-and-tumble polymers. It thus provides a fundamental principle for optimal transport of active agents in densely-packed biological and environmental settings.
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Affiliation(s)
- Christina Kurzthaler
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, 08544, USA.
| | - Suvendu Mandal
- Institut für Theoretische Physik II: Weiche Materie, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, 40225, Düsseldorf, Germany.
- Physikalisches Institut, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, 79104, Freiburg, Germany.
- Institut für Physik der kondensierten Materie, Technische Universität Darmstadt, 64289, Darmstadt, Germany.
| | - Tapomoy Bhattacharjee
- The Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, 08544, USA
- National Centre for Biological Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bangalore, 560065, India
| | - Hartmut Löwen
- Institut für Theoretische Physik II: Weiche Materie, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, 40225, Düsseldorf, Germany
| | - Sujit S Datta
- Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, 08544, USA
| | - Howard A Stone
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, 08544, USA.
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31
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Shim S, Baskaran M, Thai EH, Stone HA. CO 2-Driven diffusiophoresis and water cleaning: similarity solutions for predicting the exclusion zone in a channel flow. Lab Chip 2021; 21:3387-3400. [PMID: 34259688 DOI: 10.1039/d1lc00211b] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/13/2023]
Abstract
We investigate experimentally and theoretically diffusiophoretic separation of negatively charged particles in a rectangular channel flow, driven by CO2 dissolution from one side-wall. Since the negatively charged particles create an exclusion zone near the boundary where CO2 is introduced, we model the problem by applying a shear flow approximation in a two-dimensional configuration. From the form of the equations we define a similarity variable to transform the reaction-diffusion equations for CO2 and ions and the advection-diffusion equation for the particle distribution to ordinary differential equations. The definition of the similarity variable suggests a characteristic length scale for the particle exclusion zone. We consider height-averaged flow behaviors in rectangular channels to rationalize and connect our experimental observations with the model, by calculating the wall shear rate as functions of channel dimensions. Our observations and the theoretical model provide the design parameters such as flow speed, channel dimensions and CO2 pressure for the in-flow water cleaning systems.
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Affiliation(s)
- Suin Shim
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.
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32
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Pahlavan AA, Yang L, Bain CD, Stone HA. Evaporation of Binary-Mixture Liquid Droplets: The Formation of Picoliter Pancakelike Shapes. Phys Rev Lett 2021; 127:024501. [PMID: 34296918 DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.127.024501] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/17/2021] [Accepted: 06/07/2021] [Indexed: 06/13/2023]
Abstract
Small multicomponent droplets are of increasing importance in a plethora of technological applications ranging from the fabrication of self-assembled hierarchical patterns to the design of autonomous fluidic systems. While often far away from equilibrium, involving complex and even chaotic flow fields, it is commonly assumed that in these systems with small drops surface tension keeps the shapes spherical. Here, studying picoliter volatile binary-mixture droplets of isopropanol and 2-butanol, we show that the dominance of surface tension forces at small scales can play a dual role: Minute variations in surface tension along the interface can create Marangoni flows that are strong enough to significantly deform the drop, forming micron-thick pancakelike shapes that are otherwise typical of large puddles. We identify the conditions under which these flattened shapes form and explain why, universally, they relax back to a spherical-cap shape toward the end of drop lifetime. We further show that the formation of pancakelike droplets suppresses the "coffee-ring" effect and leads to uniform deposition of suspended particles. The quantitative agreement between theory and experiment provides a predictive capability to modulate the shape of tiny droplets with implications in a range of technologies from fabrication of miniature optical lenses to coating, printing, and pattern deposition.
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Affiliation(s)
- Amir A Pahlavan
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, New Jersey 08544, USA
| | - Lisong Yang
- Department of Chemistry, Durham University, Durham DH1 3LE, United Kingdom
| | - Colin D Bain
- Department of Chemistry, Durham University, Durham DH1 3LE, United Kingdom
| | - Howard A Stone
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, New Jersey 08544, USA
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33
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Abstract
The organization of microtubules (MTs) is critical for cells during interphase and mitosis. During mitotic spindle assembly, MTs are made and organized around chromosomes in a process regulated by RanGTP. The role of RanGTP has been explored in Xenopus egg extracts, which are not limited by a cell membrane. Here, we investigated whether cell-sized confinements affect the assembly of RanGTP-induced MT networks in Xenopus egg extracts. We used microfluidics to encapsulate extracts within monodisperse extract-in-oil droplets. Importantly, we find that the architecture of Ran-induced MT networks depends on the droplet diameter and the Ran concentration, and differs from structures formed in bulk extracts. Our results highlight that both MT nucleation and physical confinement play critical roles in determining the spatial organization of the MT cytoskeleton.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ya Gai
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.
| | - Brian Cook
- Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.
| | - Sagar Setru
- Lewis-Sigler Institute of Integrative Genomics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
| | - Howard A Stone
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.
| | - Sabine Petry
- Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.
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34
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Lai CY, Stevens LA, Chase DL, Creyts TT, Behn MD, Das SB, Stone HA. Hydraulic transmissivity inferred from ice-sheet relaxation following Greenland supraglacial lake drainages. Nat Commun 2021; 12:3955. [PMID: 34172733 PMCID: PMC8233380 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-24186-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/06/2020] [Accepted: 06/01/2021] [Indexed: 11/29/2022] Open
Abstract
Surface meltwater reaching the base of the Greenland Ice Sheet transits through drainage networks, modulating the flow of the ice sheet. Dye and gas-tracing studies conducted in the western margin sector of the ice sheet have directly observed drainage efficiency to evolve seasonally along the drainage pathway. However, the local evolution of drainage systems further inland, where ice thicknesses exceed 1000 m, remains largely unknown. Here, we infer drainage system transmissivity based on surface uplift relaxation following rapid lake drainage events. Combining field observations of five lake drainage events with a mathematical model and laboratory experiments, we show that the surface uplift decreases exponentially with time, as the water in the blister formed beneath the drained lake permeates through the subglacial drainage system. This deflation obeys a universal relaxation law with a timescale that reveals hydraulic transmissivity and indicates a two-order-of-magnitude increase in subglacial transmissivity (from 0.8 ± 0.3 \documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$${\rm{m}}{{\rm{m}}}^{3}$$\end{document}mm3 to 215 ± 90.2 \documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$${\rm{m}}{{\rm{m}}}^{3}$$\end{document}mm3) as the melt season progresses, suggesting significant changes in basal hydrology beneath the lakes driven by seasonal meltwater input. Hydraulic transmissivity under the 1km-thick Greenland Ice Sheet was inferred by ice-sheet uplift relaxation after rapid lake drainage events. A two-order-of-magnitude increase in hydraulic transmissivity was found throughout the melt season.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ching-Yao Lai
- Department of Geosciences, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA. .,Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, Palisades, NY, USA. .,Program in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.
| | - Laura A Stevens
- Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, Palisades, NY, USA.,Department of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
| | - Danielle L Chase
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
| | - Timothy T Creyts
- Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, Palisades, NY, USA
| | - Mark D Behn
- Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA
| | - Sarah B Das
- Department of Geology and Geophysics, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA, USA
| | - Howard A Stone
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
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35
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Wong GCL, Antani JD, Lele PP, Chen J, Nan B, Kühn MJ, Persat A, Bru JL, Høyland-Kroghsbo NM, Siryaporn A, Conrad JC, Carrara F, Yawata Y, Stocker R, V Brun Y, Whitfield GB, Lee CK, de Anda J, Schmidt WC, Golestanian R, O'Toole GA, Floyd KA, Yildiz FH, Yang S, Jin F, Toyofuku M, Eberl L, Nomura N, Zacharoff LA, El-Naggar MY, Yalcin SE, Malvankar NS, Rojas-Andrade MD, Hochbaum AI, Yan J, Stone HA, Wingreen NS, Bassler BL, Wu Y, Xu H, Drescher K, Dunkel J. Roadmap on emerging concepts in the physical biology of bacterial biofilms: from surface sensing to community formation. Phys Biol 2021; 18. [PMID: 33462162 PMCID: PMC8506656 DOI: 10.1088/1478-3975/abdc0e] [Citation(s) in RCA: 28] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/05/2020] [Accepted: 01/14/2021] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
Bacterial biofilms are communities of bacteria that exist as aggregates that can adhere to surfaces or be free-standing. This complex, social mode of cellular organization is fundamental to the physiology of microbes and often exhibits surprising behavior. Bacterial biofilms are more than the sum of their parts: single-cell behavior has a complex relation to collective community behavior, in a manner perhaps cognate to the complex relation between atomic physics and condensed matter physics. Biofilm microbiology is a relatively young field by biology standards, but it has already attracted intense attention from physicists. Sometimes, this attention takes the form of seeing biofilms as inspiration for new physics. In this roadmap, we highlight the work of those who have taken the opposite strategy: we highlight the work of physicists and physical scientists who use physics to engage fundamental concepts in bacterial biofilm microbiology, including adhesion, sensing, motility, signaling, memory, energy flow, community formation and cooperativity. These contributions are juxtaposed with microbiologists who have made recent important discoveries on bacterial biofilms using state-of-the-art physical methods. The contributions to this roadmap exemplify how well physics and biology can be combined to achieve a new synthesis, rather than just a division of labor.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gerard C L Wong
- Department of Bioengineering, University of California-Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, CA 90095, United States of America.,Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California-Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, CA 90095, United States of America.,California NanoSystems Institute, University of California-Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, CA 90095, United States of America
| | - Jyot D Antani
- Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, United States of America
| | - Pushkar P Lele
- Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, United States of America
| | - Jing Chen
- Department of Biological Sciences, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA24061, United States of America
| | - Beiyan Nan
- Department of Biology, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, TX 77845, United States of America
| | - Marco J Kühn
- Institute of Bioengineering and Global Health Institute, School of Life Sciences, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Alexandre Persat
- Institute of Bioengineering and Global Health Institute, School of Life Sciences, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Jean-Louis Bru
- Department of Molecular Biology & Biochemistry, University of California-Irvine, California, CA 92697, United States of America
| | | | - Albert Siryaporn
- Department of Molecular Biology & Biochemistry, University of California-Irvine, California, CA 92697, United States of America.,Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of California-Irvine, California, CA 92697, United States of America
| | - Jacinta C Conrad
- William A Brookshire Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Houston, Houston, Texas, TX 77204, United States of America
| | - Francesco Carrara
- Institute of Environmental Engineering, Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering, ETH Zurich, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Yutaka Yawata
- Faculty of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8572, Japan.,Microbiology Research Center for Sustainability, University of Tsukuba, 305-8572 Tsukuba, Japan
| | - Roman Stocker
- Institute of Environmental Engineering, Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering, ETH Zurich, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Yves V Brun
- University of Montreal, Faculty of Medicine, Montreal, Quebec, H3C 3J7, Canada
| | - Gregory B Whitfield
- University of Montreal, Faculty of Medicine, Montreal, Quebec, H3C 3J7, Canada
| | - Calvin K Lee
- Department of Bioengineering, University of California-Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, CA 90095, United States of America.,Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California-Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, CA 90095, United States of America.,California NanoSystems Institute, University of California-Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, CA 90095, United States of America
| | - Jaime de Anda
- Department of Bioengineering, University of California-Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, CA 90095, United States of America.,Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California-Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, CA 90095, United States of America.,California NanoSystems Institute, University of California-Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, CA 90095, United States of America
| | - William C Schmidt
- Department of Bioengineering, University of California-Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, CA 90095, United States of America.,Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California-Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, CA 90095, United States of America.,California NanoSystems Institute, University of California-Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, CA 90095, United States of America
| | - Ramin Golestanian
- Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization (MPIDS), D-37077 Göttingen, Germany.,Rudolf Peierls Centre for Theoretical Physics, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3PU, United Kingdom
| | - George A O'Toole
- Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, Hanover, NH 03755, United States of America
| | - Kyle A Floyd
- Department of Microbiology and Environmental Toxicology, University of California-Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, California, CA 95060, United States of America
| | - Fitnat H Yildiz
- Department of Microbiology and Environmental Toxicology, University of California-Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, California, CA 95060, United States of America
| | - Shuai Yang
- CAS Key Laboratory of Quantitative Engineering Biology, Shenzhen Institute of Synthetic Biology, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen 518055, People's Republic of China
| | - Fan Jin
- CAS Key Laboratory of Quantitative Engineering Biology, Shenzhen Institute of Synthetic Biology, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen 518055, People's Republic of China
| | - Masanori Toyofuku
- Faculty of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8572, Japan.,Microbiology Research Center for Sustainability, University of Tsukuba, 305-8572 Tsukuba, Japan
| | - Leo Eberl
- Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, University of Zürich, 8008 Zürich, Switzerland
| | - Nobuhiko Nomura
- Faculty of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8572, Japan.,Microbiology Research Center for Sustainability, University of Tsukuba, 305-8572 Tsukuba, Japan
| | - Lori A Zacharoff
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, CA 90089, United States of America.,Department of Chemistry, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, CA 90089, United States of America
| | - Mohamed Y El-Naggar
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, CA 90089, United States of America.,Department of Chemistry, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, CA 90089, United States of America.,Department of Biological Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, CA 90089, United States of America
| | - Sibel Ebru Yalcin
- Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, CT 06516, United States of America.,Microbial Sciences Institute, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, CT 06516, United States of America
| | - Nikhil S Malvankar
- Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, CT 06516, United States of America.,Microbial Sciences Institute, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, CT 06516, United States of America
| | - Mauricio D Rojas-Andrade
- Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California-Irvine, Irvine, California CA 92697, United States of America
| | - Allon I Hochbaum
- Department of Molecular Biology & Biochemistry, University of California-Irvine, California, CA 92697, United States of America.,Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California-Irvine, Irvine, California CA 92697, United States of America.,Department of Chemistry, University of California-Irvine, Irvine, California, CA 92697, United States of America.,Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of California-Irvine, Irvine, California, CA 92697, United States of America
| | - Jing Yan
- Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, CT 06511, United States of America
| | - Howard A Stone
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, NJ 08544, United States of America
| | - Ned S Wingreen
- Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, NJ 08544, United States of America.,Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, NJ 08544, United States of America
| | - Bonnie L Bassler
- Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, NJ 08544, United States of America.,The Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Chevy Chase, Maryland MD 20815, United States of America
| | - Yilin Wu
- Department of Physics and Shenzhen Research Institute, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, New Territories, Hong Kong, People's Republic of China
| | - Haoran Xu
- Department of Physics and Shenzhen Research Institute, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, New Territories, Hong Kong, People's Republic of China
| | - Knut Drescher
- Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, 35043 Marburg, Germany.,Department of Physics, Philipps-Universität Marburg, 35043 Marburg, Germany
| | - Jörn Dunkel
- Department of Mathematics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, MA 02139-4307, United States of America
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36
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Abstract
We describe the role of functional polymer surfactants in the construction and triggered collapse of droplet-based fibers and the use of these macroscopic supracolloidal structures for reagent compartmentalization. Copolymer surfactants containing both zwitterionic and tertiary amine pendent groups were synthesized for stabilization of oil-in-water droplets, in which the self-adherent properties of the selected zwitterions impart interdroplet adherence, while the amine groups provide access to pH-triggered coalescence. Macroscopic fibers, obtained by droplet extrusion, were prepared with reagents embedded in spatially distinct components of the fibers. Upon acidification of the continuous aqueous phase, protonation of the polymer surfactants increases their hydrophilicity and causes rapid fiber disruption and collapse. Cross-linked versions of these supracolloidal fibers were stable upon acidification and appeared to direct interdroplet passage of encapsulants along the fiber length. Overall, these functional, responsive emulsions provide a strategy to impart on-demand chemical reactivity to soft materials structures that benefits from the interfacial chemistry of the system.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jing Zhao
- Polymer Science & Engineering Department, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, Massachusetts 01003, United States
| | - Zehao Pan
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, United States
| | - Deborah Snyder
- Polymer Science & Engineering Department, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, Massachusetts 01003, United States
| | - Howard A Stone
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, United States
| | - Todd Emrick
- Polymer Science & Engineering Department, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, Massachusetts 01003, United States
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37
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Nunes JK, Li J, Griffiths IM, Rallabandi B, Man J, Stone HA. Electrostatic wrapping of a microfiber around a curved particle. Soft Matter 2021; 17:3609-3618. [PMID: 33439210 DOI: 10.1039/d0sm01857k] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/12/2023]
Abstract
The dynamics of the wrapping of a charged flexible microfiber around an oppositely charged curved particle immersed in a viscous fluid is investigated. We observe that the wrapping behavior varies with the radius and Young's modulus of the fiber, the radius of the particle, and the ionic strength of the surrounding solution. We find that wrapping is primarily a function of the favorable interaction energy due to electrostatics and the unfavorable deformation energy needed to conform the fiber to the curvature of the particle. We perform an energy balance to predict the critical particle radius for wrapping, finding reasonably good agreement with experimental observations. In addition, we use mathematical modeling and observations of the deflected shape of the free end of the fiber during wrapping to extract a measurement of the Young's modulus of the fiber. We evaluate the accuracy and potential limitations of this in situ measurement when compared to independent mechanical tests.
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Affiliation(s)
- Janine K Nunes
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.
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38
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Setru SU, Gouveia B, Alfaro-Aco R, Shaevitz JW, Stone HA, Petry S. A hydrodynamic instability drives protein droplet formation on microtubules to nucleate branches. Nat Phys 2021; 17:493-498. [PMID: 35211183 PMCID: PMC8865447 DOI: 10.1038/s41567-020-01141-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 34] [Impact Index Per Article: 11.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/31/2020] [Accepted: 11/24/2020] [Indexed: 05/23/2023]
Affiliation(s)
- Sagar U. Setru
- Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
| | - Bernardo Gouveia
- Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
| | - Raymundo Alfaro-Aco
- Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
| | - Joshua W. Shaevitz
- Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
- Department of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
| | - Howard A. Stone
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
| | - Sabine Petry
- Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
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Abstract
We explore hydrodynamic interactions between microswimmers and corrugated, or rough, surfaces, as found often in biological systems and microfluidic devices. Using the Lorentz reciprocal theorem for viscous flows we derive exact expressions for the roughness-induced velocities up to first order in the surface-height fluctuations and provide solutions for the translational and angular velocities valid for arbitrary surface shapes. We apply our theoretical predictions to elucidate the impact of a periodic, wavy surface on the velocities of microswimmers modeled in terms of a superposition of Stokes singularities. Our findings, valid in the framework of a far-field analysis, show that the roughness-induced velocities vary non-monotonically with the wavelength of the surface. For wavelengths comparable to the swimmer-surface distance a pusher can experience a repulsive contribution due to the reflection of flow fields at the edge of a surface cavity, which decreases the overall attraction to the wall.
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Affiliation(s)
- Christina Kurzthaler
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, New Jersey 08544, USA.
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40
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Shim S, Khodaparast S, Lai CY, Yan J, Ault JT, Rallabandi B, Shardt O, Stone HA. CO 2-Driven diffusiophoresis for maintaining a bacteria-free surface. Soft Matter 2021; 17:2568-2576. [PMID: 33514979 DOI: 10.1039/d0sm02023k] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/20/2023]
Abstract
Dissolution and dissociation of CO2 in an aqueous phase induce diffusiophoretic motion of suspended particles with a nonzero surface charge. We report CO2-driven diffusiophoresis of colloidal particles and bacterial cells in a circular Hele-Shaw geometry. Combining experiments and model calculations, we identify the characteristic length and time scales of CO2-driven diffusiophoresis in relation to system dimensions and CO2 diffusivity. The motion of colloidal particles driven by a CO2 gradient is characterized by measuring the average velocities of particles as a function of distance from the CO2 sources. In the same geometrical configurations, we demonstrate that the directional migration of wild-type V. cholerae and a mutant lacking flagella, as well as S. aureus and P. aeruginosa, near a dissolving CO2 source is diffusiophoresis, not chemotaxis. Such a directional response of the cells to CO2 (or an ion) concentration gradient shows that diffusiophoresis of bacteria is achieved independent of cell shape, motility and the Gram stain (cell surface structure). Long-time experiments suggest potential applications for bacterial diffusiophoresis to cleaning systems or anti-biofouling surfaces, by reducing the population of the cells near CO2 sources.
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Affiliation(s)
- Suin Shim
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.
| | | | - Ching-Yao Lai
- Department of Geosciences, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
| | - Jing Yan
- Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, Quantitative Biology Institute, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511, USA
| | - Jesse T Ault
- School of Engineering, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island 02912, USA
| | - Bhargav Rallabandi
- Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Riverside, California 92521, USA
| | - Orest Shardt
- Bernal Institute and School of Engineering, University of Limerick, Castletroy, Limerick V94 T9PX, Ireland
| | - Howard A Stone
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.
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Gouveia B, Setru SU, Alfaro-Aco R, Shaevitz JW, Stone HA, Petry S. A Hydrodynamic Instability Drives Protein Droplet Formation on Microtubules to Nucleate Branches. Biophys J 2021. [DOI: 10.1016/j.bpj.2020.11.1452] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
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42
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Peters WS, Jensen KH, Stone HA, Knoblauch M. Plasmodesmata and the problems with size: Interpreting the confusion. J Plant Physiol 2021; 257:153341. [PMID: 33388666 DOI: 10.1016/j.jplph.2020.153341] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/20/2020] [Revised: 12/04/2020] [Accepted: 12/07/2020] [Indexed: 05/14/2023]
Abstract
Plant tissues exhibit a symplasmic organization; the individual protoplasts are connected to their neighbors via cytoplasmic bridges that extend through pores in the cell walls. These bridges may have diameters of a micrometer or more, as in the sieve pores of the phloem, but in most cell types they are smaller. Historically, botanists referred to cytoplasmic bridges of all sizes as plasmodesmata. The meaning of the term began to shift when the transmission electron microscope (TEM) became the preferred tool for studying these structures. Today, a plasmodesma is widely understood to be a 'nano-scale' pore. Unfortunately, our understanding of these nanoscopic channels suffers from methodological limitations. This is exemplified by the fact that state-of-the-art EM techniques appear to reveal plasmodesmal pore structures that are much smaller than the tracer molecules known to diffuse through these pores. In general, transport processes in pores that have dimensions in the size range of the transported molecules are governed by different physical parameters than transport process in the macroscopic realm. This can lead to unexpected effects, as experience in nanofluidic technologies demonstrates. Our discussion of problems of size in plasmodesma research leads us to conclude that the field will benefit from technomimetic reasoning - the utilization of concepts developed in applied nanofluidics for the interpretation of biological systems.
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Affiliation(s)
- Winfried S Peters
- School of Biological Sciences, Washington State University, Pullman, WA, 99164, USA; Department of Biology, Purdue University Fort Wayne, Fort Wayne, IN, 46805, USA.
| | - Kaare H Jensen
- Department of Physics, Technical University of Denmark, DK-2800 Kgs., Lyngby, Denmark.
| | - Howard A Stone
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, 08544, USA.
| | - Michael Knoblauch
- School of Biological Sciences, Washington State University, Pullman, WA, 99164, USA.
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43
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Pan Z, Nunes JK, Stone HA. Regime Map and Triple Point in Selective Withdrawal. Phys Rev Lett 2020; 125:264502. [PMID: 33449773 DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.125.264502] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/20/2020] [Accepted: 12/04/2020] [Indexed: 06/12/2023]
Abstract
Entrainment in selective withdrawal occurs when both the top and bottom phases are withdrawn through a capillary tube oriented perpendicular to a flat gravitationally separated liquid-liquid interface. The tube introduces two distinct features to the conditions for fluid entrainment. First, the ratio of the two phases being withdrawn is affected by the region of influence of the flow upstream of the tube's orifice. Second, a minimum withdrawal flow rate must be reached for entrainment regardless of the distance between the interface and the tube. We show that these phenomena can be understood based on the Reynolds number that governs the external flow field around the capillary tube and the capillary number that regulates the effect of the viscosity and capillarity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zehao Pan
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA
| | - Janine K Nunes
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA
| | - Howard A Stone
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA
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44
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Gupta A, Govind Rajan A, Carter EA, Stone HA. Ionic Layering and Overcharging in Electrical Double Layers in a Poisson-Boltzmann Model. Phys Rev Lett 2020; 125:188004. [PMID: 33196271 DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.125.188004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/02/2020] [Revised: 09/06/2020] [Accepted: 09/30/2020] [Indexed: 06/11/2023]
Abstract
Electrical double layers (EDLs) play a significant role in a broad range of physical phenomena related to colloidal stability, diffuse-charge dynamics, electrokinetics, and energy storage applications. Recently, it has been suggested that for large ion sizes or multivalent electrolytes, ions can arrange in a layered structure inside the EDLs. However, the widely used Poisson-Boltzmann models for EDLs are unable to capture the details of ion concentration oscillations and the effect of electrolyte valence on such oscillations. Here, by treating a pair of ions as hard spheres below the distance of closest approach and as point charges otherwise, we are able to predict ionic layering without any additional parameters or boundary conditions while still being compatible with the Poisson-Boltzmann framework. Depending on the combination of ion valence, size, and concentration, our model reveals a structured EDL with spatially oscillating ion concentrations. We report the dependence of critical ion concentration, i.e., the ion concentration above which the oscillations are observed, on the counter-ion valence and the ion size. More importantly, our model displays quantitative agreement with the results of computationally intensive models of the EDL. Finally, we analyze the nonequilibrium problem of EDL charging and demonstrate that ionic layering increases the total charge storage capacity and the charging timescale.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ankur Gupta
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA
- Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309, USA
| | - Ananth Govind Rajan
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA
- Department of Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, Karnataka 560012, India
| | - Emily A Carter
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA
- Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA
- Office of the Chancellor, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA
| | - Howard A Stone
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA
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45
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Oratis AT, Bush JWM, Stone HA, Bird JC. A new wrinkle on liquid sheets: Turning the mechanism of viscous bubble collapse upside down. Science 2020; 369:685-688. [PMID: 32764069 DOI: 10.1126/science.aba0593] [Citation(s) in RCA: 31] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/12/2019] [Accepted: 06/25/2020] [Indexed: 11/02/2022]
Abstract
Viscous bubbles are prevalent in both natural and industrial settings. Their rupture and collapse may be accompanied by features typically associated with elastic sheets, including the development of radial wrinkles. Previous investigators concluded that the film weight is responsible for both the film collapse and wrinkling instability. Conversely, we show here experimentally that gravity plays a negligible role: The same collapse and wrinkling arise independently of the bubble's orientation. We found that surface tension drives the collapse and initiates a dynamic buckling instability. Because the film weight is irrelevant, our results suggest that wrinkling may likewise accompany the breakup of relatively small-scale, curved viscous and viscoelastic films, including those in the respiratory tract responsible for aerosol production from exhalation events.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alexandros T Oratis
- Department of Mechanical Engineering, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, USA
| | - John W M Bush
- Department of Applied Mathematics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
| | - Howard A Stone
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
| | - James C Bird
- Department of Mechanical Engineering, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, USA.
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46
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Um E, Kim M, Kim H, Kang JH, Stone HA, Jeong J. Phase synchronization of fluid-fluid interfaces as hydrodynamically coupled oscillators. Nat Commun 2020; 11:5221. [PMID: 33060604 PMCID: PMC7562928 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-18930-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/22/2020] [Accepted: 09/15/2020] [Indexed: 11/09/2022] Open
Abstract
Hydrodynamic interactions play a role in synchronized motions of coupled oscillators in fluids, and understanding the mechanism will facilitate development of applications in fluid mechanics. For example, synchronization phenomenon in two-phase flow will benefit the design of future microfluidic devices, allowing spatiotemporal control of microdroplet generation without additional integration of control elements. In this work, utilizing a characteristic oscillation of adjacent interfaces between two immiscible fluids in a microfluidic platform, we discover that the system can act as a coupled oscillator, notably showing spontaneous in-phase synchronization of droplet breakup. With this observation of in-phase synchronization, the coupled droplet generator exhibits a complete set of modes of coupled oscillators, including out-of-phase synchronization and nonsynchronous modes. We present a theoretical model to elucidate how a negative feedback mechanism, tied to the distance between the interfaces, induces the in-phase synchronization. We also identify the criterion for the transition from in-phase to out-of-phase oscillations. The robust production of droplets by microfluidic T-junctions is a well-established technique. Um et al. demonstrate how the mutual interaction between droplets can be used to achieve additional control including the simultaneous release of droplets caused by synchronization phenomena.
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Affiliation(s)
- Eujin Um
- Department of Physics, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), Ulsan, 44919, Republic of Korea.
| | - Minjun Kim
- Department of Physics, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), Ulsan, 44919, Republic of Korea
| | - Hyoungsoo Kim
- Department of Mechanical Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon, 34141, Republic of Korea
| | - Joo H Kang
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), Ulsan, 44919, Republic of Korea
| | - Howard A Stone
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, 08544, USA
| | - Joonwoo Jeong
- Department of Physics, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), Ulsan, 44919, Republic of Korea.
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47
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Gupta A, Zuk PJ, Stone HA. Charging Dynamics of Overlapping Double Layers in a Cylindrical Nanopore. Phys Rev Lett 2020; 125:076001. [PMID: 32857551 DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.125.076001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 21] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/26/2020] [Revised: 05/03/2020] [Accepted: 07/10/2020] [Indexed: 06/11/2023]
Abstract
The charging of electrical double layers inside a cylindrical pore has applications to supercapacitors, batteries, desalination and biosensors. The charging dynamics in the limit of thin double layers, i.e., when the double layer thickness is much smaller than the pore radius, is commonly described using an effective RC transmission line circuit. Here, we perform direct numerical simulations (DNS) of the Poisson-Nernst-Planck equations to study the double layer charging for the scenario of overlapping double layers, i.e., when the double layer thickness is comparable to the pore radius. We develop an analytical model that accurately predicts the results of DNS. Also, we construct a modified effective circuit for the overlapping double layer limit, and find that the modified circuit is identical to the RC transmission line but with different values and physical interpretation of the capacitive and resistive elements. In particular, the effective surface potential is reduced, the capacitor represents a volumetric current source, and the charging timescale is weakly dependent on the ratio of the pore radius and the double layer thickness.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ankur Gupta
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA
| | - Pawel J Zuk
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA
- Institute of Fundamental Technological Research, Polish Academy of Sciences, Pawińskiego 5b, 02-106 Warsaw, Poland
| | - Howard A Stone
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA
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48
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Abstract
Electrolytic diffusiophoresis is the movement of colloidal particles in response to a concentration gradient of an electrolyte. The diffusiophoretic velocity vDP is typically predicted through the relation vDP = DDP ∇log cs, where DDP is the diffusiophoretic mobility and cs is the concentration of the electrolyte. The logarithmic dependence of vDP on cs may suggest that the strength of diffusiophoretic motion is insensitive to the magnitude of the electrolyte concentration. In this article, we emphasize that DDP is intimately coupled with cs for all electrolyte concentrations. For dilute electrolytes, the finite double layer thickness effects are significant such that DDP decreases with a decrease in cs. In contrast, for concentrated electrolytes, charge screening could result in a decrease in DDP with an increase in cs. Therefore, we predict a maximum in DDP with cs for moderate electrolyte concentrations. We also show that for typical colloids and electrolytes , where Ds is the solute ambipolar diffusivity. To validate our model, we conduct microfluidic experiments with a wide range of electrolyte concentrations. The experimental data also reveals a maximum in DDP with cs, in agreement with our predictions. Our results have important implications in the broad areas of electrokinetics, lab-on-a-chip, active colloidal transport and biophysics.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ankur Gupta
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.
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49
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Xue N, Stone HA. Self-Similar Draining near a Vertical Edge. Phys Rev Lett 2020; 125:064502. [PMID: 32845698 DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.125.064502] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/03/2020] [Revised: 07/03/2020] [Accepted: 07/13/2020] [Indexed: 06/11/2023]
Abstract
When a liquid film drains on a vertical plate, the film becomes nonuniform near the vertical edge. Here we experimentally report the three-dimensional (3D) self-similar shape of this film. Based on the well-known 2D self-similar solution of a draining film far from the edge, we identify a new 3D self-similar scaling, which converts the partial differential equation for the film thickness with three independent variables into an ordinary differential equation. Interferometry is performed to measure the film thickness as a function of position and time, and the results are in excellent agreement with the theoretical predictions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nan Xue
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA
| | - Howard A Stone
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA
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50
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Zhao J, Santa Chalarca CF, Nunes JK, Stone HA, Emrick T. Self‐Propelled Supracolloidal Fibers from Multifunctional Polymer Surfactants and Droplets. Macromol Rapid Commun 2020. [DOI: 10.1002/marc.202070035] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
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