Properties of liquid marbles

Abstract

Liquid marbles are liquid drops made non-wetting by the use of a powder which coats them. Because of the absence of a contact line, quick motions without leakage of small amounts of liquid are allowed, which can be of interest in microfluidic applications. After characterizing the static liquid marble, we focus on its properties and study experimentally the viscous motion of liquid marbles. Then, we describe qualitatively possible ways for putting marbles into motion and quantify the robustness of this object.