As part of other research into a passive ferrofluid check valve and a ferrofluid pump that Public Invention is doing, we need to understand how to make a simple controllable ferrofluid "plug". You could call this a valve, but we are really just trying to hold back fluid pressure---that is, to "plug" a tube.
The work is explained in a poster.
This work as been mostly done by Asmi Shirsat with supervision from Robert L. Read.
Over a year, she dis some reaearch which she has written up as a poster. It should using solenoids work but are very weak. Our attempt to use horse-shoe magnets failed completely, but it is possble that we did a poor job building our magnets.