An artificial phototropism system with autonomous intelligence is critical for the development of an autonomous light-harvesting system. However, a current technology for artificial phototropism light-harvesting system with the motor system is capable of accurate direction with high efficiency but still limited to bulky and expensive. Inspired by nature, artificial phototropism systems based on photo-responsive smart soft material liquid crystal elastomer (LCE) are developed to follow the light direction but are still limited by a low payload that is not suitable for practical application. Herein, an untethered automatic light-harvesting system with artificial phototropism is proposed. This system combines the advantages of the LCE actuator and electrical control system and is capable of adjusting the solar cell facing the sun automatically through controls of bending and rotation of the LCE tubular actuator to maximize the absorption of solar energy. Compared with the traditional mini photovoltaic panels, the absorption efficiency of solar energy by the light-harvesting system is increased by 27.68% for the whole day and 230.15% in the morning or dawn sunlight with a small incident angle. The proposed untethered automatic light-harvesting system is compact, inexpensive, and can provide a large payload, showing great application potential in solar automation and robot systems, and energy-saving fields.
3D printing has been highly pursued owing to its effortless fabrication of custom-defined geometries, yet the integration of multi-material with diverse properties in one printed object remains challenging. In this work, a digital light 3D-printed polymer network that is capable of heterogeneous growth to seamlessly integrate multi-material is designed. This is accomplished through orthogonal photochemistry design, where visible light is utilized to initiate radical polymerization of acrylates for 3D printing. Inspired by plants’ phototropism due to uneven auxin distribution, UV light is employed to induce spatiotemporal catalyst generation for promoting network heterogeneous growth. In this process, it is found that the UV-generated catalyst effectively facilitates the hydrolysis of ketals to produce hydroxyls, which can further serve as “growing sites” to initiate the ring-opening polymerization of polycaprolactone. This enables precise manipulation of both shape and mechanical properties in 3D-printed objects. The distinctive heterogeneous growth mechanism of 3D printing enables the production of multi-material components using a single resin.
危险品化学品经营许可证（带存储）