Humidity-Driven Soft Actuator Built up Layer-by-Layer and Theoretical Insight into Its Mechanism of Energy Conversion

Tan, Huiyan; Yu, Xueli; Tu, Yaqing; Zhang, Lidong

doi:10.1021/acs.jpclett.9b02249

Cited by 31 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 64 publications

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“…Using this actuator, they achieved an energy conversion efficiency of 81.2% at 25 °C. [157] Besides the bilayer structures, the aligned microstructures of the plants have a significant role in their actuation and response time. Cellulose materials (cellulose nanofibers, cellulose nanocrystals, bacterial cellulose) are super hydrophilic nanostructures that can enhance response time (Figure 9D,E).…”

Section: Anisotropic Swellingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Materials, Actuators, and Sensors for Soft Bioinspired Robots

et al. 2020

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This review covers recent advancements in the field of bioinspired soft robotics, with a primary focus on the last 4 years (2017)(2018)(2019)(2020). The review serves as a toolbox for an interdisciplinary audience interested in the most recent bioinspired soft robotic technologies. In particular, it highlights and explores the vital components of soft robots, focusing on the enabling mechanisms and their biological inspirations. The first section discusses the materials used to fabricate soft bio inspired robots. Soft bioinspired actuation and sensing are then discussed, exploring their capabilities and implementation by researchers. Existing challenges and future potentials of bioinspired soft robots are addressed in the concluding remarks. This review provides engineers and scientists with the latest technological advancements and information needed for designing and developing the next generation of soft bioinspired robotic systems. The future applications of these robots will be grand and limitless. Materials Used for Bioinspired Sensors and ActuatorsClassical robotic systems are comprised of rigid bodies, actuators, and sensors. Unfortunately, many of these well-developed actuators and sensors are not transferable to soft bodies. Thus, researchers working in soft robotics need to reinvent actuators and sensors for soft moving bodies. Biological organisms can be an excellent inspiration for designing these soft actuators and sensors, allowing for their integration in both soft and rigid bodies. The design process of soft actuators and sensors have to be initiated with material selection and composition, for they are foundations upon which the actuators and sensors will be built around. Presently, a diversified list of materials has been used in the development of soft robotic systems. This section will cover some of the latest advancements in the last 4 years in the area of material selection and composition for the design and development of soft bioinspired actuators and sensors.During the past 4 years, researchers have produced soft bioinspired actuators and sensors using biological material such as muscle tissue, [23,24] and plant fibers; [25] carbon-based materials such as graphite and graphene oxide (GO) [26][27][28][29][30][31] and carbon nanotubes (CN); [32,33] hydrogel materials such as poly(Nisopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM), [34,35] liquid crystal elastomers (LCE), [36] dielectric elastomers (DE), [37] and ionic polymermetal composites (IPMC). [38] An overview of these materials (Figure 1), along with their underlying mechanisms, are discussed below.Biological systems can perform complex tasks with high compliance levels. This makes them a great source of inspiration for soft robotics. Indeed, the union of these fields has brought about bioinspired soft robotics, with hundreds of publications on novel research each year. This review aims to survey fundamental advances in bioinspired soft actuators and sensors with a focus on the progress between 2017 and 2020, providing a primer for the materials used i...

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Section: Anisotropic Swellingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Materials, Actuators, and Sensors for Soft Bioinspired Robots

et al. 2020

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“…A typical actuator, also known as artificial muscle, is the work horse of soft robots. [ 34 ] It typically needs external stimuli, such as water, [ 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 ] pH, [ 46 , 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 ] heat, [ 47 , 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 , 56 , 57 ] light, [ 58 , 59 , 60 , 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 , 65 ] electricity, [ 53 , 66 , 67 , 68 , 69 , 70 , 71 ] and magnetic field to perform. [ 27 , 72 , 73 , 74 , 75 ] In recent years, soft actuators can be classified based on materials as elastomeric pneumatic actuator (PA), hydrogel actuator (HA), bio‐hybrid actuator (BHA), actuators made of DE, twisted and coiled yarns (TCY), SMA, liquid crystal elastomers (LCE), and ionic polymer‐metal composites (IPMC).…”

Section: Biomimetic Functions and Potential Applicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Shift from Efficiency to Adaptability: Recent Progress in Biomimetic Interactive Soft Robotics in Wet Environments

et al. 2022

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Research field of soft robotics develops exponentially since it opens up many imaginations, such as human-interactive robot, wearable robots, and transformable robots in unpredictable environments. Wet environments such as sea and in vivo represent dynamic and unstructured environments that adaptive soft robots can reach their potentials. Recent progresses in soft hybridized robotics performing tasks underwater herald a diversity of interactive soft robotics in wet environments. Here, the development of soft robots in wet environments is reviewed. The authors recapitulate biomimetic inspirations, recent advances in soft matter materials, representative fabrication techniques, system integration, and exemplary functions for underwater soft robots. The authors consider the key challenges the field faces in engineering material, software, and hardware that can bring highly intelligent soft robots into real world.

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“…[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] This energy transformation can be achieved by the reversible deformation of materials (e.g., contraction, expansion, rotation, bending, twisting, and curling) under external stimuli such as electrical fields, temperature, light, pH, vapor, and pressure. [9][10][11][12] At present, most mechanically responsive materials are based on polymeric materials, including organic polymers, hydrogels, and liquid crystal elastomers, [13][14][15][16][17] while relatively less focus has been put on molecular crystals that possess precisely determined structures with ordered molecular packing. Molecular crystals exhibit considerable advantages as smart materials that can surpass traditional polymeric materials, such as rapid response, faster relaxation recovery, and a higher Young's modulus.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Protective Coating with Crystalline Shells to Fabricate Dual-Stimuli Responsive Actuators

Chen

et al. 2022

CCS Chem

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The hybridization of mechanically-responsive molecular crystals with polymers has proven to be an efficient approach to fabricate smart hybrid materials that produce multiple motions upon stimuli. However, this fabrication approach occasionally displays limitations due to the solubility or poor dispersibility of molecular crystals in the polymer matrix solution. To address these challenges, we created a facile and versatile strategy to use metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) as a protective coating against external perturbations while also improving the dispersibility of molecular crystals. As such, a series of hybrid smart materials with reversible photomechanical performance were successfully fabricated. Notably, the afforded smart materials can combine the photoresponsive properties of mechanically-responsive molecular crystals, with the vaporresponsive properties of certain polymers in one system, hence obtaining dual-stimuli responsive actuators that can perform complicated motions (e.g., crawling). These results pave the way for the fabrication of multistimuli responsive smart materials and broaden the applicable scope of MOFs.

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Humidity-Driven Soft Actuator Built up Layer-by-Layer and Theoretical Insight into Its Mechanism of Energy Conversion

Cited by 31 publications

References 64 publications

Materials, Actuators, and Sensors for Soft Bioinspired Robots

Materials, Actuators, and Sensors for Soft Bioinspired Robots

A Shift from Efficiency to Adaptability: Recent Progress in Biomimetic Interactive Soft Robotics in Wet Environments

Protective Coating with Crystalline Shells to Fabricate Dual-Stimuli Responsive Actuators

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