Using nothing but sound waves, scientists can force liquid through a 'sponge' 600 times faster than it would move on its own.
April 14, 2026
Original Paper
Turning Porous Functional Materials into Directional Transport Platforms with Unidirectional Surface Acoustic Waves
arXiv · 2604.09755
The Takeaway
This technology turns passive filters or porous materials into active, high-speed pumps with no moving parts. It bypasses the usual clogging and slow diffusion of porous networks, which could revolutionize everything from water filtration to drug delivery.
From the abstract
Porous media underpin absorption, filtration, separation, and high-area interfacial transport in chemical and diagnostic systems, yet sustained directional flow through them remains difficult because tortuous pore networks and strong acoustic losses promote bypassing, weak flow, and counterflow. Here, we show that floating-electrode unidirectional transducers (FEUDTs) convert porous materials into actively pumped transport platforms by generating predominantly unidirectional surface acoustic wav