ABSTRACT:A comparative study is performed on the conductive polymer-coated electro-active paper (EAPap) actuators by aiming at improving the overall performance of the actuators. Conductive Polymer coated Electro-active Paper [CP-EAPap] actuators are constructed using electro-deposition of polypyrrole and polyaniline on to cellulose paper. The actuation behavior is tested at different actuation frequency and humidity conditions on bilayer and trilayer types of CP-EAPap actuators. The effect of thickness variation, dopant ions and humidity conditions are compared for both conductive polymer-coated actuators. The trilayer actuators are superior than the bilayer counterparts, and polyaniline coated actuators gives better performance than polypyrrole based ones in terms of bending displacement and ruggedness to humidity. The possible actuation principle is also addressed along with X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscope results. [doi:10.1295/polymj.PJ2005185] KEY WORDS Electro-Active Paper / Electro-generation / Polypyrrole / Polyaniline / Bending Actuator / In last ten years, the field of Electro-active polymers (EAP), has received much attention due to the development of new materials that exhibits a large displacement outputs. This characteristic is a valuable attribute that has enabled a myriad of potential applications, and it has evolved to offer operational similarity to biological muscles. Hence, recent studies on EAP research, tends to focus mainly on the development and understanding of the new polymer materials. Some of the presently available materials are ionic polymer metal composites (IPMC), gel polymers, conductive polymers (CP), electrostrictive polymer artificial muscle (EPAM) and so on.
Abstract:The conducting polymers such as polyaniline, polypyrrole and polythiophene were functionalized with copper phthalocyanine using chemical oxidation method.
Actuators based on cellulose paper with conducting polymer (CP-EAPap) as an electrode material were constructed. The bilayer and trilayer types of actuators were fabricated by depositing conducting polypyrrole on one side and two sides of cellophane paper respectively, which was previously gold coated. By varying the deposition time, the electrode thickness was manipulated. The performance of these two types of actuators was compared with respect to humidity changes and thickness variation. The electrode thickness plays a key role in the displacement behavior of these types of actuators. The best performance at higher humidity is also characteristic of CP-EAPap actuators. The possible mechanism of actuation is addressed in this paper.
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