Electrochemical property and actuation mechanism of an actuator using three different electrode and same electrolyte in air: Carbon nanotube/ionic liquid/polymer gel electrode, carbon nanotube/ionic liquid gel electrode and Au paste as an electrode

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to study an electrochemical property and actuation mechanism of an actuator using same electrolyte and three different electrode (carbon nanotube (SWNT)/ionic liquid (IL)/polymer gel electrode, SWNT/IL gel electrode and Au paste as an electrode) in air, and to investigate the actuator which performs much better. We developed a PVdF(HFP)-IL gel actuator using only Au paste as an electrode layer in air (non-Faradaically driven type), i.e., the electrode layer was not composed of polymer, IL and SWNT, and the electrolyte layer was composed of polymer and IL. Furthermore, in the previous paper, the electrode layers that laminate the electrolyte layer expanded or contracted, giving rise to a bending motion of the actuator strip (Fig. 1(c) type), in this paper, we showed that, at our conventional actuator (Fig. 1(c) type) and actuator with non-polymer-supported bucky gel electrodes containing internal IL (Fig. 1(b) type), the electrolyte layer also expand or contract, giving rise to a bending motion of the actuator. As a result, we show that polymer-IL gel of the electrolyte is important factor in the field of the low-voltage electroactive polymer (EAP) actuator, and we are considered that these results become the important design principle of the low-voltage EAP actuator.