Phosphor-based security technique has received widespread attention because it can rely on fascinating optical properties (including multicolor emission and various luminous categories) to meet information protection requirements. Carbon dots (CDs)...
Smart materials promote the development of soft actuators. Herein, the modularized origami soft actuators consisting of shape memory alloy (SMA) wires, foldable paper‐based heaters, and paper substrates with special origami structures are proposed, which are connected without adhesive and allow convenient replacement for damaged parts. SMA wires are threaded into the paper as a drive module. The foldable paper‐based heaters with a length of 288 mm can be heated to 105.1 °C at 6.5 V to control the origami soft actuators. Combined with theoretical calculations and experimental measurements, the origami structure is adopted which exhibits a high recoverability compared with the flat structure because the design finds a structure–material balance by increasing structural flexural rigidity (2 times of that flat structure) for improving the restoring force while maintaining the deformation of materials within the elastic region during the actuation. The three modules in the origami actuator are independent and perform their functions individually. The combined system can also become a module that provides a driving force in other devices. This work provides a novel route and insight for developing modular soft actuators.
Spontaneously harvesting electricity through a water evaporation process is renewable and environmentally friendly, and provides a promising way for self‐powered electronics. However, most of evaporation‐driven generators are suffering from a limited power supply for practical use. Herein, a high‐performance textile‐based evaporation‐driven electricity generator based on continuous gradient chemical reduced graphene oxide (CG‐rGO@TEEG) is obtained by a continuous gradient chemical reduction strategy. The continuous gradient structure not only greatly enhances the ion concentration difference between the positive and negative electrodes but also significantly optimizes the electrical conductivity of the generator. As a result, the as‐prepared CG‐rGO@TEEG can generate a voltage of 0.44 V and a considerable current of 590.1 µA with an optimized power density of 0.55 mW cm−3 when 50 µL of NaCl solution is applied. Such scale‐up CG‐rGO@TEEGs can supply sufficient power to directly drive a commercial clock for more than 2 h in ambient conditions. This work offers a novel approach for efficient clean energy harvesting based on water evaporation.
Soft actuators with both actuation and self-sensing characteristics can better adapt to the environment and more effectively realize intelligent human−machine interactions, which is highly desired for the upcoming era of soft robotics. Herein, a multi-stimulus response actuator (MSRA) is constructed based on the asymmetric expansion principle, and the sensing function is simply and quickly integrated into the soft actuator by screen printing technology. Taking advantage of the good photothermal conversion performance of the dopamine-modified graphene oxide (DGO) layer and the difference in the expansion coefficient between the DGO layer and the poly(vinylidene fluoride)/polydimethylsiloxane layer, the soft actuators exhibit different actuation behaviors under photothermal and humidity stimuli, respectively. Meanwhile, the introduction of a printed carbon black/highly elastic transparent adhesive cement sensing layer gives MSRA a self-sensing function which can provide feedback on its actuation process in real time. In addition, various complex deformations can be achieved by the macroscopic assembly of several actuators. Finally, we show that this soft actuator can be used as a smart packaging material to realize smart packaging. We believe that actuators with sensing feedback are significant in soft robots and smart packaging.
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