Manufacture and characterization of ionic polymer transducers employingnon-precious metal electrodes

Abstract

A co-reduction process is developed for plating ionic polymer materialswith precious and non-precious metal electrodes. The purpose is todevelop a process that reduces the use of expensive precious metals suchas platinum and gold in the development of ionic polymer transducers.Previous results obtained by Bennett and Leo (2001 12th Int. Conf. onAdaptive Structures and Technologies pp 208–19) have demonstrated thatoxidation is the key issue associated with the use of non-precious metalelectrodes. The present work overcomes this problem through the use of aco-reduction process in which an alloy of platinum and copper is depositedin an impregnation/reduction process. A thin (∼50 nm)layer of gold is then deposited to increase the surface conductivity of theelectrode. Actuators developed using this process are tested for longevity forapproximately 250 000 cycles. The results demonstrate the stability of theelectrode, although multiple tests reveal that variations in the process producevariations in the electrode stability. The transducers made in this studyare also quantified in terms of their electromechanical coupling. Resultsdemonstrate that their performance is comparable to those of ionic polymermaterials made using other methods and to other types of smart material.