{"id":35772,"date":"2017-03-31T18:23:38","date_gmt":"2017-04-01T01:23:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2017\/03\/engineers-design-tree-on-a-chip-microfluidic-device-generates-passive-hydraulic-power"},"modified":"2017-06-04T07:06:53","modified_gmt":"2017-06-04T14:06:53","slug":"engineers-design-tree-on-a-chip-microfluidic-device-generates-passive-hydraulic-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2017\/03\/engineers-design-tree-on-a-chip-microfluidic-device-generates-passive-hydraulic-power","title":{"rendered":"Engineers design \u2018tree-on-a-chip\u2019: Microfluidic device generates passive hydraulic power"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

Trees and other plants, from towering redwoods to diminutive daisies, are nature\u2019s hydraulic pumps. They are constantly pulling water up from their roots to the topmost leaves, and pumping sugars produced by their leaves back down to the roots. This constant stream of nutrients is shuttled through a system of tissues called xylem and phloem, which are packed together in woody, parallel conduits.<\/p>\n

Now engineers at MIT and their collaborators have designed a microfluidic device they call a \u201ctree-on-a-chip,\u201d which mimics the pumping mechanism of trees and plants. Like its natural counterparts, the chip operates passively, requiring no moving parts or external pumps. It is able to pump water<\/a> and sugars through the chip at a steady flow rate for several days. The results are published this week in Nature Plants<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Anette \u201cPeko\u201d Hosoi, professor and associate department head for operations in MIT\u2019s Department of Mechanical Engineering, says the chip\u2019s passive pumping may be leveraged as a simple hydraulic actuator for small robots. Engineers have found it difficult and expensive to make tiny, movable parts and pumps to power complex movements in small robots<\/a>. The team\u2019s new pumping mechanism may enable robots whose motions are propelled by inexpensive, sugar <\/a>-powered pumps.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Trees and other plants, from towering redwoods to diminutive daisies, are nature\u2019s hydraulic pumps. They are constantly pulling water up from their roots to the topmost leaves, and pumping sugars produced by their leaves back down to the roots. This constant stream of nutrients is shuttled through a system of tissues called xylem and phloem, [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":367,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-engineering","category-robotics-ai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/367"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35772"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58230,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35772\/revisions\/58230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}