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High Performance Soft Electrochemical Actuators Based on Hierarchical Conductive Polymer Ionogels

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Abstract

Electrochemical actuators based on conductive polymers are emerging as a strong competitive in the field of soft actuators because of their intrinsically conformable/elastic nature, low cost, low operating voltage and air-working ability. Recent development has shown that adding electroactive materials, such as CNT and graphene, can improve their actuation performance. Despite the complex material systems used, their output strains (one of the key factors) are generally lower than 1%, which limited further applications of them in multiple scenarios. Here, we report soft electrochemical actuators based on conductive polymer ionogels by embedding polyaniline particles between the PEDOT:PSS nanosheets. Results show that such a hierarchical structure not only leads to a high conductivity (1250 S/cm) but also improved electrochemical activities. At a low operating voltage of 1 V, the maximum strain of these soft actuators reaches an exceptional value of 1.5%, with a high blocking force of 1.3 mN. Using these high-performance electrochemical actuators, we demonstrate soft grippers for manipulating object and a bionic flower stimulated by an electrical signal. This work sets an important step towards enabling the enhanced performance of electrochemical actuators based on conductive polymers with designed microstructures.

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Data Availability

The datasets generated during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2022M711372), Postdoctoral Research Program of Jiangsu Province (2021K544C) and the General Program of Natural Science Foundation for Higher Education in Jiangsu Province (21KJB510004); G. Cheng acknowledges the support from young & middle-aged academic leaders of Jiangsu Blue Project and Jiangsu 333 talent fund; L. Xu acknowledges the support from National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC No.51905222) and Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (Grant No. BK20211068). This work was also supported by International Science and Technology Cooperation Project in Zhenjiang City (Grant No: GJ2020009)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Laser Processing Robotics, College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Wenzhou University, Wenzhou, 325035, China

    Hongwei Hu & Aixin Feng

  2. Institute of Intelligent Flexible Mechatronics, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, 212013, China

    Hongwei Hu, Shengtao Zhang, Xinghao Hu, Lin Xu & Guanggui Cheng

  3. School of Mechanical Engineering, Jiangsu University of Science and Technology, Zhenjiang, 212100, China

    Yan Li

  4. School of Mechanical Engineering, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou, 225127, China

    Jianning Ding

  5. Jiangsu Collaborative Innovation Center of Photovoltaic Science and Engineering, Changzhou University, Changzhou, 213164, China

    Jianning Ding

  6. Ruian Graduate School of Wenzhou University, Ruian, 325207, Zhejiang, China

    Aixin Feng

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  1. Hongwei Hu
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  2. Shengtao Zhang
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  3. Yan Li
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  4. Xinghao Hu
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  8. Jianning Ding
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Contributions

HH: Conceptualization, investigation, data curation, formal analysis, writing—original draft. SZ: Methodology, formal analysis. YL: Characterization, data collection. XH: Investigation, data curation, formal analysis. LX: Investigation, data curation, formal analysis. AF: Conceptualization, investigation, project administration, funding acquisition. GC: Supervision, writing—review and editing. JD: Conceptualization, supervision.

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Correspondence to Aixin Feng, Guanggui Cheng or Jianning Ding.

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Hu, H., Zhang, S., Li, Y. et al. High Performance Soft Electrochemical Actuators Based on Hierarchical Conductive Polymer Ionogels. J Bionic Eng 20, 2755–2763 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42235-023-00401-6

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