Graphene oxide introduction

However, the electrical conductivity of the carbon nanomaterials is vulnerable to degradation due to the inefficient dispersion in a large-scale actuator. To this end, some metallic additives have been incorporated into the carbon-based electrode to enhance the electrical conductivity and actuation stability For instance, for the IPMC actuator where the reduced graphene oxide was used as electrode, the electrical conductivity of the electrodes could be efficiently improved after introduction of Ag nanoparticles (Fig. 8.2E) (Lu et al., 2013). As a result, both the actuation frequency and stability could be improved. Upon application of a low voltage of 1V, the actuator could be driven at a wide frequency range (0.01-10 Hz), and no obvious decrease in displacement was observed over 500 cycles of actuation. 

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