Investigation of a Biocompatible Artificial Muscle Based on Different Electrolyte Additive

Abstract:

Recently, ionic actuator as a kind of artificial muscle has attracted great attentions according to their remarkable strain under low-voltage stimulation. Here, we investigated a biocompatible ionic polymer actuator, which consists of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MCNTs) film as the double electrode layer and an electrolyte layer equipped with a chitosan polymer skeleton. As a result, we found it presented various electromechanical properties under the preparation factors of the different additive glycerol (0mL, 2mL, 4mL). The actuators with 2mL glycerol behaved a longer life bending (65 times), which was obviously surpassed by the others. Also, based on strain and stress testing, Young's modulus of the electrolyte presented a decreasing trend. In fact, the improvement was mainly due to the weakened inter-molecular hydrogen and the rotation molecular of the electrolyte film. Results show the additive inside the electrolyte is very effective to improve the performance of artificial muscle.

• Periodical: Journal of Biomimetics, Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering (Volume 29)
• Pages: 9-13
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/JBBBE.29.9
• Online since: October 2016
• Authors: Zhuang Zhi Sun*, Gang Zhao, Wen Long Song, Guang Li Zhang, Hong Shi Bi
• Keywords: Additive, Artificial Muscle, Biocompatible, Electromechanical Properties

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