Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction in liquid marbles

TL;DR

This study introduces a novel method of creating liquid marbles with BZ solution, enabling mobile, patterned arrays for studying wave transfer and information processing in chemical systems.

Contribution

It presents a new encapsulation technique for BZ droplets in powder-coated liquid marbles, facilitating mobility and array formation for pattern and wave transfer studies.

Findings

Liquid marbles can transport chemical cargoes and sustain oscillations.

Wave transfer occurs sporadically between adjacent marbles.

Propagation pathways of excitation waves are characterized.

Abstract

This paper reports on a new method of encapsulating BZ solution droplets in a powder coating of either polyethylene (PE) or polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), to produce BZ liquid marbles (LMs). The BZ LMs have solid--liquid interfaces in contrast to the previously reported BZ encapsulation systems used to study pattern formations and wave transfers, such as BZ emulsions and BZ vesicles. All these systems are important to study as they can be seen as analogues for information transfer in excitable systems in nature. Due to the powder coating of the LMs, LMs do not wet the underlying substrate, making the LMs mobile, enabling them to be easily arranged in arrays. The preparation of complex LMs, containing an acidic oscillating solution, proves the resilience of LMs and their application in transporting a wide range of chemical cargoes and in playing a mediating role in chemical reactions. PTFE-coated LMs were harder to prepare and not as robust as PE-coated LMs, therefore oscillation studies of BZ LMs positioned in arrays only focused on PE-coated LMs. Sporadic transfer of excitation waves was observed between LMs placed in close proximity to each other in ordered and disordered arrays, suggesting the transfer of liquid species possibly arises from contact between imperfectly coated areas at the LM--LM interface or capillary action, where solution is actively transported to the marble surface through the coating. Propagation pathways of the excitation waves in both the disordered and ordered arrays of BZ LMs are reported. These results lay the foundations for future studies on information transmission and processing arrays of BZ LMs, in addition to observing BZ wave propagation in a LM and the effect of other physical stimuli such as heat, light and chemical environments on the dynamics of excitation in arrays of BZ Lms.