Highly bendable ionic electroactive polymer actuator based on carboxylated bacterial cellulose by doping with MWCNT

Human-friendly electronic devices including medical active devices, soft haptic devices, artificial muscle, and wearable electronics, will require the use of high-performance soft actuators with bio-friendly property, large bending deformation, and low actuation voltage. Herein, we report a novel ionic electroactive actuator based on carboxylated bacterial cellulose (CBC), ionic liquid (IL), multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT), and PEDOT: PSS electrodes. The designed actuator displayed superior electro-chemo-mechanical properties due to its ionic crosslinking structure formed by the strong ionic interactions among CBC, MWCNT, and IL. Specifically, the actuator demonstrated large bending strain (8.2 mm under 1.0 V sinusoidal input voltage at 0.1 Hz), low actuation voltage (< 2 V), excellent actuation durability (95% retention in 2 h), high Young's modulus (349.1 MPa), and specific capacitance (76.97 mF cm(-2)). More importantly, the artificial soft robotic fingers using the CBC-IL-MWCNT actuators were successfully realized. Therefore, the designed actuator will promote the advancement of artificial muscles, soft haptic devices, biomimetic robots, soft robots, wearable devices, and tactile devices.

Automated summary

In this study, a novel ionic electroactive actuator based on carboxylated bacterial cellulose is reported, which exhibits superior electro-chemo-mechanical properties due to the interaction of ionic liquid, multi-walled carbon nanotubes, and PEDOT: PSS electrodes. The actuator demonstrates large bending deformation, low actuation voltage, excellent actuation durability, high Young's modulus, and specific capacitance.