Enhanced Electromechanical Responses of IPCNC Actuators

In this presentation, we will show several progresses in Ionic Polymer Conductor Network Composite Actuators (IPCNC) studies. First of all, we successfully fabricated ultra high volume fraction vertically aligned carbon nanotubes (VA-CNTs)/polymer composite electrodes which markedly improved the electromechanical performance of IPCNC actuators. The experimental results show that the continuous paths through inter-VA-CNT channels and low electrical conduction resistance due to the continuous CNTs lead to fast actuation speed (>10% strain/second). The experimental results also demonstrate that the VA-CNTs create anisotropic elastic property in the composite electrodes, which suppresses the vertical strain and markedly enhances the actuation strain (>8% strain under 4 volts). The data here show the promise of optimizing the electrode morphology in IPCNCs by the ultrahigh volume fraction VA-CNTs for ionic polymer actuators to achieve high performance.