All-organic electrostrictive polymer composites with low driving electrical voltages for micro-fluidic pump applications

Abstract

This paper focuses on the improvement of a relaxor ferroelectric terpolymer, i.e., poly (vinylidene fluoride-trifluoroethylene-chlorofluoroethylene) [P(VDF-TrFE-CFE)], filled with a bis(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP). The developed material gave rise to a significantly increased longitudinal electrostrictive strain, as well as an increased mechanical energy density under a relatively low electric field. These features were attributed to the considerably enhanced dielectric permittivity and a decreased Young modulus as a result of the introduction of only small DEHP plasticizer molecules. In addition, the plasticizer-filled terpolymer only exhibited a slight decrease of the dielectric breakdown strength, which was a great advantage with respect to the traditional polymer-based electrostrictive composites. More importantly, the approach proposed herein is promising for the future development and scale-up of new high-performance electrostrictive dielectrics under low applied electrical fields through modification simply by blending with a low-cost plasticizer. An experimental demonstration based on a flexible micro-fluidic application is described at the end of this paper, confirming the attractive characteristics of the proposed materials as well as the feasibility of integrating them as micro-actuators in small-scale devices.

Microfluidic Assessment of Frying Oil Degradation

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Reducing leakage current and dielectric losses of electroactive polymers through electro-annealing for high-voltage actuation

“…The 50 Â 10 mm rectangular specimens with 90 mm-thick terpolymer lms were used and a full description of the developed test bench was detailed in our previous works. 43 Fig. 3 shows that determining the slope of the stress-versus-strain curve, an estimation of the Young's modulus values can be obtained equal to 148 MPa for both TH sample and E-TH sample.…”

Polymer-based smart materials by printing technologies: Improving application and integration

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