The present invention relates to droplet-based surface modification and washing. According to one embodiment, a method of providing a bead-containing droplet with a reduced concentration of a substance is provided, the method including providing a droplet microactuator including a droplet having a starting volume and including one or more beads and a starting concentration and starting quantity of the substance. The method further includes conducting one or more droplet operations to merge a wash droplet with the droplet provided in the above step to yield a combined droplet and including one or more droplet operations to divide the combined droplet to yield a set of droplets including a droplet including substantially all of the one or more beads and having a decreased concentration of the substance relative to the starting concentration and a droplet which is substantially lacking in the beads.