Switchable opening and closing of a liquid marble via ultrasonic levitation

Liquid marbles have promising applications in the field of microreactors, where the opening and closing of their surfaces plays a central role. We have levitated liquid water marbles using an acoustic levitator and, thereby, achieved the manipulation of the particle shell in a controlled manner. Upon increasing the sound intensity, the stable levitated liquid marble changes from a quasi-sphere to a flattened ellipsoid. Interestingly, a cavity on the particle shell can be produced on the polar areas, which can be completely healed when decreasing the sound intensity, allowing it to serve as a microreactor. The integral of the acoustic radiation pressure on the part of the particle surface protruding into air is responsible for particle migration from the center of the liquid marble to the edge. Our results demonstrate that the opening and closing of the liquid marble particle shell can be conveniently achieved via acoustic levitation, opening up a new possibility to manipulate liquid marbles coated with non-ferromagnetic particles

Kinetic Study on the Isothermal and Nonisothermal Crystallization of Monoglyceride Organogels

The isothermal and nonisothermal crystallization kinetics of monoglyceride (MAG) organogels were studied by pulsed nuclear magnetic resonance (pNMR) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), respectively. The Avrami equation was used to describe the isothermal crystallization kinetics and experimental data fitted the equation fairly well. Results showed that the crystal growth of MAG organogels was a rod-like growth of instantaneous nuclei at higher degrees of supercooling and a plate-like form with high nucleation rate at lower degrees of supercooling. The exothermic peak in nonisothermal DSC curves for the MAG organogels became wider and shifted to lower temperature when the cooling rate increased, and nonisothermal crystallization was analyzed by Mo equation. Results indicated that at the same crystallization time, to get a higher degree of relative crystallinity, a higher cooling rate was necessary. The activation energy of nonisothermal crystallization was calculated as 739.59 kJ/mol according to the Kissinger method. Therefore, as the results of the isothermal and nonisothermal crystallization kinetics for the MAG organogels obtained, the crystallization rate, crystal nucleation, and growth during the crystallization process could be preliminarily monitored through temperature and cooling rate regulation, which laid the foundation for the real industrial manufacture and application of the MAG organogels

Inducing drop to bubble transformation via resonance in ultrasound

Bubble formation plays an important role in industries concerned with mineral flotation, food, cosmetics, and materials, which requires additional energy to produce the liquid–gas interfaces. A naturally observed fact is, owing to the effect of surface tension, a bubble film tends to retract to reduce its surface area. Here we show a “reverse” phenomenon whereby a drop is transformed into a bubble using acoustic levitation via acoustic resonance. Once the volume of the cavity encapsulated by the buckled film reaches a critical value V*, resonance occurs and an abrupt inflation is triggered, leading to the formation of a closed bubble. Experiments and simulations both reveal that V* decreases with increasing acoustic frequency, which agrees well with acoustic resonance theory. The results afford enlightening insights into acoustic resonance and highlight its role in manipulating buckled fluid–fluid interfaces, providing a reference for fabricating unique core–shell-like materials

Search for dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks in √s = 13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for weakly interacting massive particle dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks is presented. Final states containing third-generation quarks and miss- ing transverse momentum are considered. The analysis uses 36.1 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at √s = 13 TeV in 2015 and 2016. No significant excess of events above the estimated backgrounds is observed. The results are in- terpreted in the framework of simplified models of spin-0 dark-matter mediators. For colour- neutral spin-0 mediators produced in association with top quarks and decaying into a pair of dark-matter particles, mediator masses below 50 GeV are excluded assuming a dark-matter candidate mass of 1 GeV and unitary couplings. For scalar and pseudoscalar mediators produced in association with bottom quarks, the search sets limits on the production cross- section of 300 times the predicted rate for mediators with masses between 10 and 50 GeV and assuming a dark-matter mass of 1 GeV and unitary coupling. Constraints on colour- charged scalar simplified models are also presented. Assuming a dark-matter particle mass of 35 GeV, mediator particles with mass below 1.1 TeV are excluded for couplings yielding a dark-matter relic density consistent with measurements