Electrochemistry: A basic and powerful tool for micro- and nanomotor fabrication and characterization

Abstract

Electrochemistry, although an ancient field of knowledge, has become of paramount importance in the synthesis of materials at the nanoscale, with great interest not only for fundamental research but also for practical applications. One of the promising fields in which electrochemistry meets nanoscience and nanotechnology is micro/nanoscale motors. Micro/nano motors, which are devices able to perform complex tasks at the nanoscale, are commonly multifunctional nanostructures of different materials - metals, polymers, oxides- and shapes -spheres, wires, helices- with the ability to be propelled in fluids. Here, we first introduce the topic of micro/nanomotors and make a concise review of the field up to day. We have analyzed the field from different points of view (e.g. materials science and nanotechnology, physics, chemistry, engineering, biology or environmental science) to have a broader view of how the different disciplines have contributed to such exciting and impactful topic. After that, we focus our attention on describing what electrochemical technology is and how it can be successfully used to fabricate and characterize micro/nanostructures composed of different materials and showing complex shapes. Finally, we will review the micro and nanomotors fabricated using electrochemical techniques with applications in biomedicine and environmental remediation, the two main applications investigated so far in this field. Thus, different strategies have thus been shown capable of producing core-shell nanomaterials combining the properties of different materials, multisegmented nanostructures made of, for example, alternating metal and polymer segments to confer them with flexibility or helicoidal systems to favor propulsion. Moreover, further functionalization and interaction with other materials to form hybrid and more complex objects is also shown.