Characterization and electromechanical performance of cellulose-chitosan blend electro-active paper

Cellulose-based electro-active paper (EAPap) has been reported as a smart material that has merits in terms of light weight, dry condition, biodegradability, sustainability, large displacement output and low actuation voltage. However, its actuator performance is very sensitive to humidity and degrades with time. To solve these drawbacks, we introduce an EAPap actuator made with cellulose and chitosan blend films. Cellulose-chitosan blend films were prepared by dissolving the polymers in trifluoroacetic acid as a co-solvent followed by spin-coating onto glass substrates. A bending EAPap actuator is made by depositing thin gold electrodes on both sides of the cellulose-chitosan films. Characteristics of these blend films are performed by FT-IR, XRD, TGA, SEM and a pull test. The electromechanical performance of the EAPap actuator is evaluated in terms of free bending displacement with respect to the actuation frequency, voltage, time variation and humidity levels. Results show that this chitosan-cellulose-based EAPap actuator is less sensitive to humidity: it shows a large bending displacement ( about 4.1 mm) and long lifetime ( more than 9 h) at room humidity conditions. It indicates that this chitosan-cellulose EAPap is promising for many biomimetic applications in the foreseeable future.