Abstract
Cellulose-based electroactive actuators are promising for biomimetic robots and biomedical applications due to the biocompatibility; however, they exhibit inferior actuation performance normally than traditional conductive polymer actuators. Doping some ions can improve actuation, because ion migration plays an important role for cellulose-based electroactive actuators. In this work, the effects of ions on the structure, mechanical strength and electroactive performance of cellulose nanofibril (CNF) actuators were investigated in order to further clarify the mechanism of ions migration. CNFs from mechanical grinding have very low content of ions and show no obvious electroactive behaviour. After doping with inorganic salts or ionic liquids, the electroactive properties of the CNF composites are significantly improved. The composite actuators containing NH4Cl and [EMIM]Cl exhibited the tip displacements as high as − 33.52 mm in 10 s and − 23.34 mm in 3.5 s under 9 V DC, respectively. Comparing electroactive performance of actuators with different ions, it is found that hydration enthalpy of ions has a close relationship with electroactive properties. The composite actuators with [EMIM]Cl showed good actuation durability under 5 V/0.1 Hz AC for 50 cycles without displacement attenuation. Overall, this study demonstrated the mechanism of ions migration in cellulose-based electroactive materials, and it provides new insight for relationship between hydration enthalpy of ions and electroactive property of cellulose-based actuators, which is expected to design the cellulose-based electroactive actuators with the adjustable electroactive property.
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This work was supported by the Opening Foundation of State Key Laboratory of Advanced Materials and Electronic Components (FHR-JS-202011015) and the Open Fund of State Key Laboratory of Biobased Fiber Manufacturing Technology (SKL202206).
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CC and YH did experiments together; LQ and YH wrote the draft of paper; JL, HR and XC provided the idea; JL and XC supervised the experiments; LQ and BH revised the draft of paper.
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Qian, L., Chen, C., Huang, Y. et al. Nanocellulose-based electroactive actuators and their performance with various ions. Cellulose 30, 4455–4468 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-023-05143-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-023-05143-6