The cost-effective and high-performance ionic polymer–metal composites (IPMC) were designed and prepared from ion-exchange membranes based on sulfonated poly(ether ether sulfone) (SPEES) with different degrees of sulfonation (DS). The precursor of SPEES, namely PEES, is commercially available and industrial grade. Moreover, the PEES can be transformed easily into ion-conductive SPEES through a simple sulfonation reaction. The ion exchange capacity (IEC) and water uptake (WU) of SPEES membranes increase with increasing their DS, and the proton conductivities of these hydrated SPEES membranes are subsequently enhanced. Compared with the commercial Nafion ion-exchange membrane, the SPEES membranes have higher IEC and WU. The IPMC actuators made of the SPEES membranes show the large bending strain and fast response under electric stimulation. The SPEES membrane with the highest DS (SPEES4) shows the best performance of IPMC actuators. The electromechanical behaviors of these IPMC actuators indicate that the SPEES is a candidate to substitute Nafion.
Faming Lin,Haidong Xu,Tao Wang,Yalian Wen,Yifan Liu
Ionic polymer-metal composite (IPMC) actuators have attracted considerable scientific interest in the field of robotics and artificial muscles due to their low operating voltage, high strain capacity, and lightweight. However, the non-uniform bending of IPMC actuators affects their control accuracy and limits their potential applications. In this work, the surface voltage of IPMC actuators was measured and the internal electric field distribution was numerically computed. It was concluded that the non-uniform bending is mainly due to the non-uniform distribution of hydrated cations inside the IPMC as a result of the inhomogeneous electric field. The bending uniformity is improved by sputtering a gold layer on the surface of the IPMC actuator, and a support strip is introduced to limit the bending of the IPMC in the width direction, resulting in an improvement of its pointing characteristics. It is found that the bending uniformity of IPMC improved by 35.27% and 119.48% by sputtering at an input voltage of 2.5 V and 5 V respectively. When the input voltage is fixed at 2.5 V and 5 V, the bending in the width direction is reduced by 75.68% and 93.12% with the support structure, respectively.
危险品化学品经营许可证（带存储）