Invited Speakers

Flexible Actuating Materials for Wearable Applications

Abstract

Wearable textile devices that convert electrical energy to mechanical work, with performance similar to skeletal muscles, are attractive because these human-friendly medical devices can be worn directly by injured or disabled people for purpose of home rehabilitation or care. However, up-to-date, among various approaches and materials, that is, pneumatic actuator, electroactive polymer, piezo-ceramic and shape memory alloy, there has not yet been such a miniaturized soft motor that can reach the required level of actuation like muscles. Among them, ionic polymer actuators are light, flexible, low (safe) working voltage and show great promises to meet the challenge. The typical ionic polymer actuator is composed of a semipermeable ion-exchange polymer membrane covered with two electrode layers. During actuation process, ion migration caused by the applied electrical field induces the swelling of one side and shrinkage of the other side, and thus the actuator strip bends. In the system, our recent research mainly focused on the electrodes. By using novel carbon nanotube, graphene and graphdiyne as the electrodes and the energy conversion medium, significant progress and high performance in terms of low power consumption, larger strain, faster actuation speed, and larger transducing efficiency have been achieved, which makes them as prime candidates as human-friendly polymer actuators and wearable muscles.