"This proposal is concerned with electrowetting, which is a surface wetting phenomenon resulting from the electrical control of the surface tension properties on application of an electric potential. In recent years, the control of aqueous droplets on dielectrically insulated has become a hot topic. On the one hand, there are applications of electrowetting in electrical displays, auto-focus liquid lenses for mobile phones and video-speed smart paper. On the other hand, it offers many exciting applications for microfluidic systems for lab-on-a-chip devices to move, split, merge, and mix liquid droplets. The objective of the proposed research is to improve the performance of electrowetting in microfluidic systems for application to the pipe based bioreactor system that has been developed at the host institute. This improved performance is to be achieved by improved material choice for insulating and hydrophobic layers and a deeper study of how the interfacial properties of various materials affect the electrowetting dynamics."