High-Performance All-Gel-State Nano-Biopolymer Artificial Muscles Enabled by Macromolecularly Interconnected Conductive Microporous Chitosan and Graphene Loaded Carbon Nanosheet Based Ionic Electrolyte Membrane

Abstract

In this paper, we report all-hydrogel-state nano-biopolymer actuator based on nanocomposite ionic electrolyte layer with GO / MCNTs fibers and poly (Chitosan/glycerin/acetic acid), which revealed excellent flexibility, water retention, as well as superior electrochemical properties under different doping rates of MCNTs and GO. Our microporous ionic electrolyte membrane showed the uniform interconnectivity, high conductivity, and excellent mechanical properties due to the strong intermolecular interaction of Cs-MCNTs-GO, which efficiently reduced aggregation during the fabrication process. The proposed device can achieve large peak to peak deformation displacement (up to 4.08 mm) and bending force (up to 12 mN), and deliver remarkable specific capacitance (from 44.6 to 106.1 F/cm2), quick response speed (approximately 20s), high ionic conductivity (17.5 uS/cm), small impedance (1.136 Ω), and excellent power density (from 0.18 to 0.25 W/g), outperforming than many gel-based actuators reported before. These findings suggest that the explored excellent ionic conductivity and flexibility of ionic polymer electrolyte holds great promise in the further study of high-performance actuators.