Flexible Actuator Based on Conductive PAM Hydrogel Electrodes with Enhanced Water Retention Capacity and Conductivity

Conductive polyacrylamide (PAM) hydrogels with salts that act as electrolytes have been used as transparent electrodes with high elasticity in flexible electronic devices. Different types and contents of raw materials will affect their performance in all aspects. We tried to introduce highly hydratable salts into PAM hydrogels to improve their water retention capacity. Different salts can improve the water retention capacity of PAM hydrogels to a certain extent. In particular, PAM hydrogels containing higher concentrations of lithium chloride (LiCl) and calcium chloride (CaCl₂) showed an extremely strong water retention capacity and could retain about 90% and more than 98% of the initial water in the experimental environment at a temperature of 25 °C and a relative humidity of 60% RH, respectively. In addition, we conducted electrical conductivity tests on these PAM hydrogels with different salts. The PAM hydrogels containing LiCl also show outstanding conductivity, and the highest conductivity value can reach up to about 8 S/m. However, the PAM hydrogels containing CaCl₂, which also performed well in terms of their water retention capacity, were relatively common in terms of their electrical conductivity. On this basis, we attempted to introduce single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs), multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs), and graphene (GO) electronic conductors to enhance the electrical conductivity of the PAM hydrogels containing LiCl. The conductivity of the PAM hydrogels containing LiCl was improved to a certain extent after the addition of these electronic conductors. The highest electrical conductivity was about 10 S/m after we added the SWCNTs. This experimental result indicates that these electronic conductors can indeed enhance the electrical conductivity of PAM hydrogels to a certain extent. After a maximum of 5000 repeated tensile tests, the conductive hydrogel samples could still maintain their original morphological characteristics and conductivity. This means that these conductive hydrogel samples have a certain degree of system reliability. We made the PAM conductive hydrogels with high water retention and good conductivity properties into thin electrodes and applied them to an electric response flexible actuator with dielectric elastomer as the functional material. This flexible actuator can achieve a maximum area strain of 18% under an external voltage of 10 kV. This new composite hydrogels with high water retention and excellent conductivity properties will enable more possibilities for the application of hydrogels.