Wanna see a "superhydrophobic" knife cut a drop of water in half? Well, of course you do!
The superhydrophobic knife is the work of Dr. Antonio Garcia and his team at the College of Engineering in Tempe, Arizona. What's going on here is in fact cutting — bisecting the drop into two clean parts — rather than just smashing it. From the paper:
"Finding a rapid, efficient and simple means of separating components in a small sample, such as a drop, without using channels, stationary phase, gels or other transfer media is a two-pronged problem. One needs, firstly, a suitable means of generating conditions within the drop for separating molecules and, secondly, a means of collecting one or more components separated from the rest."
For more, and to learn about the crazy amount of prep that gets a superhydrophobic knife ready to slice a droplet, check out the paper here.
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