Self?Cleaning Surfaces Realized by Biologically Sized Magnetic Artificial Cilia

Magnetic artificial cilia (MAC) are small actuators inspired by biological found in nature. In microfluidic chips, MAC can generate flow and remove microparticles, with applications anti-fouling. However, the used for anti-fouling current literature has dimensions of several hundred micrometers length, which limits application to relatively large length scales. Here, biologically-sized magnetic (b-MAC) only 45 long that randomly distributed on surface, microparticles. It is shown microparticles sizes ranging from 5 40 µm be removed efficiently final cleanness ranges 69% 100%, highest actuation frequency applied (40 Hz). The lowest obtained a size equal average pitch between b-MAC. randomness distribution appears have positive effect cleanliness, compared authors’ earlier work using regular array. demonstrated self-cleaning b-MAC constitutes an essential step toward efficient surfaces real-life miniaturized devices, such as lab-on-a-chip or organ-on-a-chip well preventing fouling submerged marine sensors.