Micro container made of levitated liquid bead

Liquid bead, an emerging digital microfluidic platform offers a wide range of applications in research and industry. Making liquid beads using acoustic levitation technology allows for the fabrication of micro container. Extensive insight into levitated liquid beads is essential for determining their performance. Firstly, this paper unfolds the unique interface of the levitated liquid bead, which has thin membrane of shell material on top and thus serves as a micro container. Next, we characterised the puncture toughness of liquid beads to assess the capability of releasing the liquid content. Liquid bead with larger corresponding shell volume and lower core volume recorded the highest resistance against needle penetration. Finally, we observed the thermal behaviour of liquid beads at elevated temperature. The liquid beads showed no morphological change over 10-minutes period at 50 °C. At 65 °C, liquid bead exceeded the critical temperature threshold, which resulted in breaking the thin membrane and releasing the liquid from the core.