Improved electromechanical properties of polydimethylsiloxane composites with sandwich structured Al(OH)3@GO nanosheets

Dielectric elastomer can undergo reversible deformation under external electric field, which was seen as the next generation drives for its excellent performance. Increasing the actuated strain under low electric field is a crucial strategy to further broaden the utilization range of dielectric elastomers. Herein, a sandwich structured aluminum hydroxide@graphene oxide (Al(OH)(3)@GO) nanosheets were fabricated by the bottom-up method, and the hybrid was incorporated into the PDMS matrix to form dielectric elastomer composite. The presence of insulating Al(OH)(3) layer can impede the creation of conductive pathways and hinder the occurrence of leakage currents, thus the composite presents a high dielectric constant value under a low loss. As a result, the Al(OH)(3)@GO/PDMS-0.7% composite exhibited excellent performance with the best actuated strain value of 23.61% under a field of 44.52 kV/mm, which was 4.8 times that of pure PDMS. Meanwhile, the maximum electromechanical coupling efficiency (k) of Al(OH)(3)@GO/PDMS-0.7% composite was 0.645, which was twice larger than VHB 4910. This work provided a reliable avenue for studying dielectric elastomer materials with excellent electromechanical properties.

Automated summary

Dielectric elastomers, such as the aluminum hydroxide@graphene oxide (Al(OH)(3)@GO)/PDMS composite, show excellent performance and can be used as the next generation drives due to their ability to undergo reversible deformation under external electric fields. The presence of insulating Al(OH)(3) layer in the composite helps impede conductive pathways and leakage currents, resulting in a high dielectric constant value and improved actuated strain under low electric fields.