Biohybrid Microalgae Robots: Design, Fabrication, Materials and Applications.

The integration of microorganisms and engineered artificial components has shown considerable promise for creating biohybrid microrobots. The unique features of microalgae make them attractive candidates as natural actuation materials for the design of biohybrid microrobotic systems. In this review, w e will introduce microalgae-based biohybrid microrobots for diverse biomedical and environmental applications. W e will describe first the distinct propulsion and phototaxis behaviors of green microalgae as well as important properties from other photosynthetic microalga systems (blue-green algae and diatom) that are crucial to constructing powerful biohybrid microrobots. W e then focus on chemical and physical routes for functionalizing the algae surface with diverse reactive materials towards the fabrication of advanced biohybrid microalgae robots. Finally, w e present representative applications of such algae-driven microrobots, including drug delivery, imaging, and water decontamination, highlighting the distinct advantages of these active biohybrid robots, along with future prospects and challenges. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.