Journal
CHEMICAL ENGINEERING JOURNAL
Volume 427, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
ELSEVIER SCIENCE SA
DOI: 10.1016/j.cej.2021.130879
Keywords
Soft actuators; Electrospun fibers; Hydrogel micropatterns; Multi-responsive; Actuator fabrication platforms
Categories
Funding
- National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) - Korea government (MSIT) [2020M3A914039045, 2018M3A9E2024583, 2021R1A4A1032207, 2021R1A2C2009070, 2020M3E5D8106968]
- Institute of Convergence Science (ICONS) at Yonsei University
- National Research Foundation of Korea [2021R1A2C2009070, 2021R1A4A1032207, 2018M3A9E2024583] Funding Source: Korea Institute of Science & Technology Information (KISTI), National Science & Technology Information Service (NTIS)
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The study proposes an engineered multi-responsive actuator fabrication platform by combining electrospinning and hydrogel lithography techniques, successfully demonstrating a soft actuator with reversible bending and unbending capabilities. Computational modeling is used to elucidate the bending mechanism of the actuator and regulate the bending direction, showing that the fabrication process is versatile and adaptable.
Soft actuators enable the motion of soft materials such as living organisms, biomaterials, and flexible materials in environments where multiple stimuli are simultaneously present. Although various fast, reversible, and direction-guided actuators exist, their material and structural complexity hinder the construction of a simple fabrication platform for actuators responsive to various environmental conditions with reversible and controlled actuation dynamics. We propose an engineered multi-responsive actuator fabrication platform by combining electrospinning and hydrogel lithography techniques. The fabricated soft actuator is composed of stimuli-responsive hydrogel fibers as an active layer, non-responsive fibers as a passive layer, and a micropatterned hydrogel coupling layer to combine those layers. We demonstrate the reversible bending and unbending of the actuator in response to changes in pH and temperature for less than 2 min. The computational modeling is used to elucidate the bending mechanism of the layered actuator and obtain the key parameters to determine its characteristics. The bending direction is regulated by modulating the mechanical properties of the actuator materials and dimensions of hydrogel micropatterns. The fabrication process is versatile and multi-responsive actuation is achieved by adding another active fiber layer without modifying it. Our study provides an insight into the design of a stimulus-specific, multi-scale, multi-functional soft actuator.
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