New magnetic spray turns small objects into robots

Scientists have developed an agglutinate magnetic spray that allows them to control small objects, effectively turning them into robots.

A team of bioengineers from the Shenzhen Institutecame up with a simpler way to make microrobots. They created an adhesive magnetic spray that contains polyvinyl alcohol, gluten and iron powder. When applied to the surface of objects, it firmly adheres to the surface, forming a film 0.1-0.25 mm thick, without changing their shape and structure.

After processing the item,The researchers magnetized it in one or more directions to precisely control the robot's movements and then heated it until the spray hardened.As a result of such manipulations, the movement of objects can be controlled by a magnetic field in different modes.Depending on the structure, tiny robots can walk, crawl, roll or roll over different surfaces.

The developed M-spray is biocompatible andif necessary, it can be destroyed using an oscillating magnetic field, which allows it to be used for medical purposes. The coating also degrades quickly in an acidic environment at pH 1 in about 8 minutes.

Let us recall that recently scientists also reported the development of a new type of microrobots with acoustic control.

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