Electromechanical modeling of plasticized PVC gel actuators and the improvement in their performances with the additions of ionic liquids

Abstract

We studied the detailed electrochemical and electromechanical properties of a polyvinyl chloride (PVC) gel with dibutyladipate (DBA) as a plasticizer and developed an electromechanical model based on the electrochemical data. We evaluated the electric deformation of the PVC gel by the bending displacement response of the PVC gel strip when a square-wave voltage is applied. We studied the electrochemical impedance measurements of the PVC gel under bias voltages. Based on the above electromechanical and electrochemical experimental results, we developed a deformation model of the PVC gel where the electric bending response is basically due to the electrochemical formation of the plasticizer-rich layer and its deformation from the Maxwell stress. Then, in order to enhance the actuation performance of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) gel actuators, we prepared PVC gel film with ionic liquid (IL) additives and studied the generated strain of PVC gel actuators with four types of ILs. We found that the actuator response of the PVC gels with 0.01 wt% ILs is almost two times larger than those without ILs at low applied voltages of 200 V to 600 V. We studied the electrochemical properties of the PVC gels with ILs and proposed an electromechanical model previously. On the basis of the proposed electromechanical model, the effect of IL additives on enhancing the actuation performance can be clearly described.