Current soft robots are mainly based on soft solid materials that exhibit limited deformability, lack micrometer-scale compartmental structures and are not amenable to surface reactions. Here, we propose a biocompatible ultra-soft all-water aquabot, which has met all these challenges. The shapes of aquabots can be flexibly programmed by printing water in water over multiple length scales. Aqueous phase-separation-induced self-assembly generates hierarchical micrometer-scale structures beyond the resolution of direct printing. The compartmental membranes can be easily functionalized by binding biomolecules or embedding catalytic nanoparticles. By harnessing the liquid-like properties and functional compartmentalized structures, the aquabots can trigger cascade biocatalytic and targeted photocatalytic reactions, and achieve unprecedented softness for target degradation, delivery and release in very narrow, confined and tortuous spaces. The aquabots are amenable to diverse range of functionalization, well beyond that possible with current soft robots, for synthetic biology, bioengineering, and biomedical applications in the future.

Aquabots

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ACS Fall 2022

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.