This study presents a novel and facile strategy to fabricate a hydrophilic poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) electrolyte film with enhanced inner channels for a highperformance and cost-effective ion-exchange polymer metal composite (IPMC) actuator. The resultant PVDF composite film is composed of hierarchical micro/nanoscale structures: well-defined polymer grains with a diameter of ∼20 μm and much finer particles with a diameter of ∼390 nm, producing three-dimensional interconnected, hierarchical inner channels to facilitate ion migration of IPMC. Interestingly, the electrolyte matrix film has a high porosity of 15.8% and yields a high water uptake of 44.2% and an ionic liquid (IL, [EMIm]•[BF 4 ]) uptake of 38.1% to make both water-driven and IL-driven IPMC actuators because of the introduction of polar polyvinyl pyrrolidone. Compared to the conventional PVDF/IL-based IPMC, both water-driven and IL-driven PVDF-based IPMCs exhibit high ion migration rates, thus effectively improving the actuation frequency and producing remarkably higher levels of actuation force and displacement. Specifically, the force outputs are increased by 13.4 and 3.0 folds, and the displacement outputs are increased by 2.2 and 1.9 folds. Using an identical electrolyte matrix, water-driven IPMC exhibits stronger electromechanical performance, benefiting to make IPMC actuator with high levels of force and power outputs, whereas IL-driven IPMC exhibits a more stable electromechanical performance, benefiting to make long lifetime IPMC actuator in air. Thus, the resultant IPMCs are promising in the design of artificial muscles with tunable electromechanical performance for flexible actuators or displacement/vibration sensors at low cost. KEYWORDS: ionic exchange polymer metal composite (IPMC), electromechanical response, poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF), polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP), ionic liquid (IL), inner channel
Sheet-assembled hollow CuSe nanocubes are fabricated by a facile template-directed selenation method and exhibit record rate capability among the chalcogenide compounds reported so far.
It was demonstrated that flake-like structures containing Si-based nanosheets were successfully synthesized on Si(111) substrates. By exposure of CaSi 2 /Si substrates to CrCl 2 vapor, Ca atoms were extracted from CaSi 2 , then, the Si-based nanosheets were formed. The structural properties of the Si-based nanosheets formed at the edge of the flakes were examined. It is noted that the flake-like structures were rooted to the substrates, and that the Si-based nanosheets were easily exfoliated from the flake-like structures, to expose the surfaces corresponding to the Si{111} planes of the nanosheet, originated from the corrugated Si(111) layers linked by Ca in CaSi 2 .
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.