Dual-Stimuli Responsive Carbon Nanotube Sponge-PDMS Amphibious Actuator.

Yu Ji,Yufeng Xing,Xuequan Li,Li-Hua Shao

doi:10.3390/nano9121704

Abstract

A dual-stimuli responsive soft actuator based on the three-dimensional (3D) porous carbon nanotube (CNT) sponge and its composite with polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) was developed, which can realize both electrothermal and electrochemical actuation. The bimorph actuator exhibited a bending curvature of 0.32 cm−1·W−1 under electrothermal stimulation on land. The displacement of the electrochemical actuator could reach 4 mm under a 5 V applied voltage in liquid. The dual-responsive actuator has demonstrated the applications on multi-functional amphibious soft robots as a crawling robot like an inchworm, a gripper to grasp and transport the cargo and an underwater robot kicking a ball. Our study presents the versatility of the CNT sponge-based actuator, which can be used both on land and in water.

Highlights

Actuators, which can move in response to input energies [1,2,3], have had increasing attention paid to them over the years for different applications such as biomedical devices [4,5], soft robots [6,7] and artificial muscles [8,9]
Carbon nanotube (CNT) [32,33,34,35] is commonly utilized in electrothermal actuators (ETA) or electrochemical actuators (ECA) owing to its exceptional properties, such as its light weight, high conductivity and large specific surface area
A review of ionic polymer metal composite (IPMC) actuators prepared with different kinds of carbon nanotube (CNT)-based electrodes as ECA has been presented by Chen’s group [38]

Summary

Introduction

Actuators, which can move in response to input energies [1,2,3], have had increasing attention paid to them over the years for different applications such as biomedical devices [4,5], soft robots [6,7] and artificial muscles [8,9]. Fan et al have reported the aligned CNT-based composite electrothermal actuator taking advantage of the mismatch in the coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) of different components; the free-end displacement of the actuator could reach up to 9.5 mm in 5 s [32]. As early as 1999, Baughman et al firstly reported the Single-Wall Carbon Nanotubes based electrochemical actuator [39]. Their group started to focus on the actuation performance of CNT based actuators. CNT buckpapers have been used as electrodes with a Nafion membrane as the electrochemical actuation [42]

Methods

Results

Conclusion