Issue 5, 2024

Minimal numerical ingredients describe chemical microswimmers’ 3-D motion

Abstract

The underlying mechanisms and physics of catalytic Janus microswimmers is highly complex, requiring details of the associated phoretic fields and the physiochemical properties of catalyst, particle, boundaries, and the fuel used. Therefore, developing a minimal (and more general) model capable of capturing the overall dynamics of these autonomous particles is highly desirable. In the presented work, we demonstrate that a coarse-grained dissipative particle-hydrodynamics model is capable of describing the behaviour of various chemical microswimmer systems. Specifically, we show how a competing balance between hydrodynamic interactions experienced by a squirmer in the presence of a substrate, gravity, and mass and shape asymmetries can reproduce a range of dynamics seen in different experimental systems. We hope that our general model will inspire further synthetic work where various modes of swimmer motion can be encoded via shape and mass during fabrication, helping to realise the still outstanding goal of microswimmers capable of complex 3-D behaviour.

Graphical abstract: Minimal numerical ingredients describe chemical microswimmers’ 3-D motion

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
27 Jul 2023
Accepted
13 Dec 2023
First published
29 Dec 2023
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

Nanoscale, 2024,16, 2444-2451

Minimal numerical ingredients describe chemical microswimmers’ 3-D motion

M. R. Bailey, C. M. Barriuso Gutiérrez, J. Martín-Roca, V. Niggel, V. Carrasco-Fadanelli, I. Buttinoni, I. Pagonabarraga, L. Isa and C. Valeriani, Nanoscale, 2024, 16, 2444 DOI: 10.1039/D3NR03695B

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