Issue 12, 2023

Light-powered swarming phoretic antimony chalcogenide-based microrobots with “on-the-fly” photodegradation abilities

Abstract

Microrobots are at the forefront of research for biomedical and environmental applications. Whereas a single microrobot exhibits quite low performance in the large-scale environment, swarms of microrobots are representing a powerful tool in biomedical and environmental applications. Here, we fabricated phoretic Sb2S3-based microrobots that exhibited swarming behavior under light illumination without any addition of chemical fuel. The microrobots were prepared in an environmentally friendly way by reacting the precursors with bio-originated templates in aqueous solution in a microwave reactor. The crystalline Sb2S3 material provided the microrobots with interesting optical and semiconductive properties. Because of the formation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) upon light illumination, the microrobots possessed photocatalytic properties. To demonstrate the photocatalytic abilities, industrially used dyes, quinoline yellow and tartrazine were degraded using microrobots in the “on-the-fly” mode. Overall, this proof-of-concept work showed that Sb2S3 photoactive material is suitable for designing swarming microrobots for environmental remediation applications.

Graphical abstract: Light-powered swarming phoretic antimony chalcogenide-based microrobots with “on-the-fly” photodegradation abilities

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
07 jan 2023
Accepted
26 feb 2023
First published
03 mar 2023
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

Nanoscale, 2023,15, 5726-5734

Light-powered swarming phoretic antimony chalcogenide-based microrobots with “on-the-fly” photodegradation abilities

A. Jancik-Prochazkova and M. Pumera, Nanoscale, 2023, 15, 5726 DOI: 10.1039/D3NR00098B

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

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