Plant-inspired TransfOrigami microfluidics

Abstract

The healthy functioning of the plants’ vasculature depends on their ability to respond to environmental changes. In contrast, synthetic microfluidic systems have rarely demonstrated this environmental responsiveness. Plants respond to environmental stimuli through nastic movement, which inspires us to introduce transformable microfluidics: By embedding stimuli-responsive materials, the microfluidic device can respond to temperature, humidity, and light irradiance. Furthermore, by designing a foldable geometry, these responsive movements can follow the preset origami transformation. We term this device TransfOrigami microfluidics (TOM) to highlight the close connection between its transformation and the origami structure. TOM can be used as an environmentally adaptive photomicroreactor. It senses the environmental stimuli and feeds them back positively into photosynthetic conversion through morphological transformation. The principle behind this morphable microsystem can potentially be extended to applications that require responsiveness between the environment and the devices, such as dynamic artificial vascular networks and shape-adaptive flexible electronics.