Scientists at Berkeley Lab and the University of Massachusetts Amherst have demonstrated the first self-powered, aqueous robot that runs continuously without electricity. The technology has potential as an automated chemical synthesis or drug delivery system for pharmaceuticals.

But before a robot can get to work, it needs energy — typically from electricity or a battery. Yet even the most sophisticated robot can run out of juice. For many years, scientists have wanted to make a robot that can work autonomously and continuously, without electrical input.

Now, as reported last week in the journal Nature Chemistry, scientists at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of Massachusetts Amherst have demonstrated just that — through «water-walking» liquid robots that, like tiny submarines, dive below water to retrieve precious chemicals, and then surface to deliver chemicals «ashore» again and again.

The technology is the first self-powered, aqueous robot that runs continuously without electricity. It has potential as an automated chemical synthesis or drug delivery system for pharmaceuticals.

«We have broken a barrier in designing a liquid robotic system that can operate autonomously by using chemistry to control an object’s buoyancy,» said senior author Tom Russell, a visiting faculty scientist and professor of polymer science and engineering from the University of Massachusetts Amherst who leads the Adaptive Interfacial Assemblies Towards Structuring Liquids program in Berkeley Lab’s Materials Sciences Division.

Russell said that the technology significantly advances a family of robotic devices called «liquibots.» In previous studies, other researchers demonstrated liquibots that autonomously perform a task, but just once; and some liquibots can perform a task continuously, but need electricity to keep on running. In contrast, «we don’t have to provide electrical energy because our liquibots get their power or ‘food’ chemically from the surrounding media,» Russell explained.

Story Source: Materials provided by DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Original written by Theresa Duque. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.