A liquid metal motor that can “eat” aluminum food and then move spontaneously and swiftly in various solution configurations and structured channels for more than 1 h is discovered. Such biomimetic mollusk is highly shape self-adaptive by closely conforming to the geometrical space it voyages in. The first ever self-fueled pump is illustrated as one of its typical practical utilizations.
The self-powered liquid metal motor is surprisingly simple. You just a drop of metal alloy made mostly of gallium – which is liquid at just under 30 °C – with some indium and tin mixed in. When placed in a solution of sodium hydroxide, or even brine, and kept in contact with a flake of aluminium for "fuel", it moves around for about an hour. It can travel in a straight line, run around the outside of a circular dish, or squeeze through complex shapes.
"The soft machine looks rather intelligent and [can] deform itself according to the space it voyages in, just like [the] Terminator does from the science-fiction film," says Jing Liu from Tsinghua University in Beijing, China. "These unusual behaviours perfectly resemble the living organisms in nature," he says, adding that they raise questions about the definition of life.
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