Rafts made from dust-like particles have carried water droplets across a sea of oil without a spill. The idea could be useful for shunting tiny drops around, giving greater control over chemical reactions within microf luidic devices used to analyse DNA, for example. Small particles are used to stabilise emulsions of oil and water because the particles stick to the boundaries between the liquids, preventing them separating out. Etienne Jambon-Puillet of the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris, France, and his colleagues made use of this when they scattered 250-micrometre particles of zirconium oxide blended with amorphous silica on a pool of oil. The particles acted as if they were a solid surface, forming rafts.
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