Electrochemical trilayer actuator

Bilayer and trilayer actuators Characterizations of Electrochemical cell Experimental procedure Materials Conducting polymers (CPs) Liquid electrolyte Open air Cyclic voltammetry Dibutyltin dilaurate Electronic conducting polymers (ECPs) Interpenetrating polymer network (IPN) Poly (3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) Polypyrrole (PPY) Actuation mechanism of Electrogeneration of Electropolymerization of pyrrole monomer Oxidation and reduction reaction of Polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) Solid polymer electrolyte (SPE) membrane Force characterizations IPNs Load curves and metrics PVDF membrane Strain characterizations... 

The trilayer PPy actuator is illustrated in Fig. 5.1. On both sides of the actuator are PPy layers. In the middle is an amorphous, porous pol3cvinyli-dene fluoride (PVDF) layer that serves both as a backing material and a reservoir for the electrolyte, which allows the actuator to work in air for a limited period of time (up to several hours). During the electrochemical deposition of the PPy layers, anions A in the electrolyte are introduced into the polymer matrix, which is a process called doping. When a voltage is ap-... 

Trilayer PPy actuators were first reported by the Intelligent Polymer Research Institute at the University of Wollongong, Australia. A description of the fabrication process can be found in, e.g., [Wu et al. (2006)], and it is provided here for completeness. The PPy layers are electrochemically deposited on both sides of a gold-coated porous PVDF film. The PVDF film obtained from Sigma-Aldrich Co., has a thickness of 110 lam with pore size of 0.45 /Ltm. Gold layers of 100 nm are sputtered on both sides of the PVDF,... 

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