Factors influencing electrochemical actuation of polyaniline fibers in ionic liquids

Room-temperature ionic liquids have been demonstrated to be advantageous in the development of conducting polymer electrochemical devices. In this paper, we fabricated electrochemical actuators using polyaniline fibers and ionic liquid electrolytes and investigated factors that influence their actuation performance in the ionic liquid [BMIM][BF4], such as the dopant anion, conductive and mechanical properties of the polyaniline fibers, external load, and operational potentials. Long-term testing was also performed on these ionic liquid/polyaniline fiber actuators and the actuators showed an excellent lifetime of over one million redox cycles.