Light-powered soft robots could suck up oil spills
Water striders, steam engines inspire slicker picker-upper

Date:
December 2, 2021
Source:
University of California - Riverside
Summary:
A floating, robotic film could be trained to hoover oil spills at
sea or remove contaminants from drinking water.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
A floating, robotic film designed at UC Riverside could be trained to
hoover oil spills at sea or remove contaminants from drinking water.


========================================================================== Powered by light and fueled by water, the film could be deployed
indefinitely to clean remote areas where recharging by other means would
prove difficult.

"Our motivation was to make soft robots sustainable and able to adapt on
their own to changes in the environment. If sunlight is used for power,
this machine is sustainable, and won't require additional energy sources,"
said UCR chemist Zhiwei Li. "The film is also re-usable." Researchers
dubbed the film Neusbot after neustons, a category of animals that
includes water striders. These insects traverse the surface of lakes and
slow- moving streams with a pulsing motion, much like scientists have been
able to achieve with the Neusbot, which can move on any body of water.

While other scientists have created films that bend in response to light,
they have not been able to generate the adjustable, mechanical oscillation
of which Neusbot is capable. This type of motion is key to controlling
the robot and getting it to function where and when you want.

Technical details of this achievement are described in a new Science
Robotics paper.



========================================================================== "There aren't many methods to achieve this controllable movement using
light.

We solved the problem with a tri-layer film that behaves like a steam
engine," Li explained.

The steam from boiling water powered the motion of early trains. It
is a similar principle that powers Neusbot, except with light as the
power source.

The middle layer of the film is porous, holding water as well as iron
oxide and copper nanorods. The nanorods convert light energy into heat, vaporizing the water and powering pulsed motion across the water's
surface.

Neusbot's bottom layer is hydrophobic, so even if an ocean wave
overpowered the film, it would float back to the surface. Additionally,
the nanomaterials can withstand high salt concentrations without
damage. "I'm confident about their stability in high salt situations,"
Li said.

Li and UCR chemistry professor Yadong Yin specialize in making robots
from nanomaterials. They controlled Neusbot's direction by changing
the angle of its light source. Powered only by the sun, the robot would
simply move forward.

With an additional light source, they could control where Neusbot swims
and cleans.

The current version of Neusbot only features three layers. The research
team wants to test future versions with a fourth layer that could absorb
oil, or one that absorbs other chemicals.

"Normally, people send ships to the scene of an oil spill to clean
by hand.

Neusbot could do this work like a robot vacuum, but on the water's
surface," Li said.

They would also like to try and control its oscillation mode more
precisely and give it the capability for even more complex motion.

"We want to demonstrate these robots can do many things that previous
versions have not achieved," he said.

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by
University_of_California_-_Riverside. Original written by Jules
Bernstein. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Zhiwei Li, Nosang Vincent Myung, Yadong Yin. Light-powered soft
steam
engines for self-adaptive oscillation and biomimetic
swimming. Science Robotics, 2021; 6 (61) DOI:
10.1126/scirobotics.abi4523 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/12/211202141526.htm

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