Effect of surfactants on the performance of tubular and spherical micromotors – a comparative study

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The development of artificial micromotors is one of the greatest challenges of modern nanotechnology. Even though many kinds of motors have been published in recent times, systematic studies on the influence of components of the fuel solution are widely missing. Therefore, the autonomous movement of Pt-microtubes and Pt-covered silica particles is comparatively observed in the presence and absence of surfactants in the medium. One representative of each of the three main surfactant classes-anionic (sodium dodecyl sulfate, SDS), cationic (benzalkonium chloride, BACl) and non-ionic (Triton X)-has been chosen and studied.
This research was partially supported by grant from Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad; MINECO (grant number MAT2012-38318-C03-02) and the ERC grant “Lab-in-a-tube and Nanorobotics biosensors” (grant number #311529).