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Published April 21, 2018 | public
Journal Article

Advances in liquid metals for biomedical applications

Abstract

To date, liquid metals have been widely applied in many fields such as electronics, mechanical engineering and energy. In the last decade, with a better understanding of the physicochemical properties such as low viscosity, good fluidity, high thermal/electrical conductivity and good biocompatibility, gallium and gallium-based low-melting-point (near or below physiological temperature) alloys have attracted considerable attention in bio-related applications. This tutorial review introduces the common performances of liquid metals, highlights their featured properties, as well as summarizes various state-of-the-art bio-applications involving carriers for drug delivery, molecular imaging, cancer therapy and biomedical devices. Challenges for the clinical translation of liquid metals are also discussed.

Additional Information

© 2018 The Royal Society of Chemistry. Received 29th December 2017; First published on 20th March 2018. This work was supported by the grants from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation (Sloan Research Fellowship), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2017ZX09304021), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21504034, 31671035), the Jiangsu Provincial Medical Innovation Team (CXTDA2017024) and the Jiangsu Province Foundation (BK20161137, BK20170204, BE2016632). There are no conflicts to declare.

Additional details

Created:
August 19, 2023
Modified:
October 18, 2023