Strategies for tuning carbon nanotube plastic actuator performance through material hybridization and the thickness effect: a proof of principle

Abstract

Bucky gel actuators are a kind of electrochemical actuator based on carbon nanotubes having interesting features. They are intrinsically safe because are operated at low voltage, they are lightweight and they are able to work in air without any liquid electrolyte. One key aspect that needs improvement is their actuation speed which is strongly dependent on their ability of being efficiently charged and discharged without exceeding the electrochemical stability window of the electrolyte. By proper material processing, we have successfully addressed this issue. An actuator thickness reduction to one third of the original size results in a one order of magnitude increase of both the strain at higher frequencies and the maximum operating frequency. The strain improvement at high frequency due to thinning has the sole drawback of decreasing the maximum strain that can be achieved in quasi-static conditions. We addressed this second issue by using a proper combination of actuating materials. Oxidative polymerization of pyrrole was carried out directly on preformed bucky gel slurry in order to combine the remarkable properties of ionic actuators based on carbon nanotubes and polypyrrole. A small amount of polypyrrole is sufficient to dramatically improve the overall actuator performance, and by using this hybrid it is possible to obtain thin actuators (about 0.1 mm) with superior performance even at lower frequencies.