Mechanical stability optimization of Flemion-based composite artificial muscles by use of proper solvent
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Yasuo Kuga Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195 (Received 21 December 2005; accepted 16 March 2006)
Ionic polymer metal composite (IPMC) is a promising candidate for artificial muscles and other bio-related applications. Compared with the widely reported Nafion, Flemion-based IPMC has some more attractive advantages. To improve its mechanical stability in dry environments, the organic solvent glycerol was applied. The mechanical characteristics such as tip displacement, tip force and durability were measured and analyzed. The results showed that Flemion-based IPMC with glycerol as solvent has optimum mechanical stability in dry conditions and will be a good candidate for artificial muscles working in air.
I. INTRODUCTION
Ionic polymer metal composite (IPMC), as a newly developed and effective material for both actuators and sensors, attracts great attention due to its potential as a bio-mimetic candidate (see Fig. 1). It is physically light and flexible. Moreover, it could be easily actuated under a really low voltage.1,2 In addition, IPMC is a promising candidate actuator for bio-related applications mainly due to its biocompatibility, soft properties, and operation in wet conditions.3 Previous reports mainly focus on the IPMC actuators’ operation in wet environments. Recently, Bennett et al. has displaced the conventional solvent water in Nafion with ionic liquids, which has very low measurable vapor pressure compared with water. Thus, this bio-related material could work in dry environments with greater stability.4 Extensive work has been done on Nafion-based IPMC, including optimization of mechanical properties and working stability3–6; some excellent results on modeling of IPMC with water have also been reported.7–9 However, little work has been done on another important artificial muscle candidate Flemion, which has unique advantages. The most attractive feature is that Flemion has no back relaxation during actuation. Therefore, when used as artificial muscle, it could be more easily controlled. In addition, some precise bio-manipulation on the microscale may be achievable. a)
Address all correspondence to this author. e-mail: [email protected] DOI: 10.1557/JMR.2006.0245 2018 J. Mater. Res., Vol. 21, No. 8, Aug 2006 http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 24 Mar 2015
In this paper, we report our work on using glycerol as a solvent in Flemion-based IPMC. No back relaxation in tip displacement was observed in our experiment. We found that there was an interesting “activating” process in glycerol-saturated Flemion under tip displacement measurement. We also demonstrated that Flemion-based IPMC with glycerol has a very long lifespan with respect to previously reported counterparts with other organic solvents.10 It also has great potential as artificial muscle working in air.
II. EXPERIMENTAL
On each side of the original Flemion-145K membrane, i.e., thickness 145 m and the counter ion K+, gold electrode was deposited according to the impregnation
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