CNT/conductive polymer composites for low-voltage driven EAP actuators

Takushi Sugino; Yoshiyuki Shibata; Kenji Kiyohara; Kinji Asaka

doi:10.1117/12.914759

3 April 2012 CNT/conductive polymer composites for low-voltage driven EAP actuators

Takushi Sugino, Yoshiyuki Shibata, Kenji Kiyohara, Kinji Asaka

Proceedings Volume 8340, Electroactive Polymer Actuators and Devices (EAPAD) 2012; 83400T (2012) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.914759
Event: SPIE Smart Structures and Materials + Nondestructive Evaluation and Health Monitoring, 2012, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

We investigated the effects of additives incorporated into the electrode layer in order to improve the actuation performance of dry-type carbon nanotube (CNT) actuators. Especially, the addition of conductive nano-particles such as polyaniline (PANI) and polypyrrole (PPy) improves actuation performance very much rather than the addition of nonconductive nano-particles such as mesoprous silica (MCM-41 type). In this paper, we studied on the influences of applied voltage, species of ionic liquid (IL), amounts of IL, thickness of actuator to optimize actuation performance. Imidazolium type ionic liquids with three different anions, that is, 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium (EMI) as a cation and tetrafluoroborate (BF₄), trifluoromethanesulfonate (OTf), and bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide (TFSI) as anions were chosen in this study. EMIBF₄ is the most suitable IL for our CNT actuator including PANI in the electrode layer. We tuned the amount of IL and the thickness of actuator. As a result, the strain was improved to be 2.2% at 0.1 Hz by applying the voltage of 2.5 V. This improved value is almost 2 times larger than our previous results. We also show the potential of improved CNT actuators for a thin and light Braille display.

Citation Download Citation

Takushi Sugino, Yoshiyuki Shibata, Kenji Kiyohara, and Kinji Asaka "CNT/conductive polymer composites for low-voltage driven EAP actuators", Proc. SPIE 8340, Electroactive Polymer Actuators and Devices (EAPAD) 2012, 83400T (3 April 2012); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.914759

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