Magnets are something that made our lives easier thanks to all the inventors and scientists from all centuries that made efforts towards this. Such creations include the MRI body scan machines, the magnetic needle on a compass, and magnetic data storage devices. However, all these magnets used in these inventions are solid. What about using a magnetic liquid?
The first magnetic liquid in the world
A team of scientists at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has come up with that using a modified 3D printer. You can take a look at their findings in the journal Science, where they were published. Thanks to them, liquid devices might be a thing of the present. For example, this material could help the creation of artificial cells that help defeat cancer. With that being said, scientists could control such liquid devices using an external magnetic field.
An incredible discovery opens the way for more discoveries
A professor of polymer science and engineering at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and a visiting faculty scientist at Berkeley Lab, Tom Russell said that this new material is a magnetic liquid and it is the first time it has even been produced. A new area of Science in the soft magnetic matter is now opened for scientists to explore.
What did they use to reach their goal?
The program called Adaptive Interfacial Assemblies Towards Structuring Liquids has been led by Russell for the past seven years aiming to develop new materials, 3D-printable all-liquid structures. Along with the study’s lead author, Xubo Liu, the team decided to use ferrofluids for their magnetic liquid compositions. They wanted to use these because, in the presence of another magnet, these solutions of iron-oxide particles become strongly magnetic.
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