A novel electroactive plasticized polymer actuator based on chlorinated polyvinyl chloride gel

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Polymer Chemistry
• Robotics

Background:

• Plasticized poly (vinyl chloride) (PVC) gel is a key material for soft actuators and sensors.
• Chlorinated polyvinyl chloride (CPVC) offers improved mechanical and chemical properties compared to PVC.
• CPVC presents potential for advanced electroactive polymer gel actuators.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose and investigate a novel soft actuator based on CPVC gels.
• To analyze the properties of CPVC gels using various characterization techniques.
• To evaluate the performance of CPVC gel actuators, focusing on membrane thickness and plasticizer content.

Main Methods:

• Characterization of CPVC gels using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA).
• Fabrication of CPVC gel actuators.
• Investigation of the influence of membrane thickness and plasticizer (DBA) content on actuator performance.

Main Results:

• CPVC gel actuators with higher dibutyl adipate (DBA) content exhibited superior strain.
• CPVC gel actuators showed better performance than traditional PVC gel actuators under low applied load at similar DBA ratios.
• A CPVC gel actuator (CPVC:DBA = 1:2.5) achieved a maximum strain of 9% and stress of 0.12 MPa at 400 V.

Conclusions:

• The proposed CPVC gel soft actuator demonstrates significant potential for practical applications.
• CPVC offers advantages over PVC for fabricating high-performance electroactive polymer gel actuators.
• Optimized plasticizer content is crucial for achieving desired strain and performance in CPVC gel actuators.