Silicone resembling poly (propylene glycol) interpenetrating networks based on no pre-stretch as basis for electrical actuators

Abstract

Elastomers currently used as transducers have not been designed with this specific application in mind and there is therefore a need for new target engineered materials to bring down driving voltages and increase actuator performance. A proposed method of optimization involves the development of new types of interpenetrating polymer networks (IPNs) to be used as dielectric elastomer (DE) transducers. This work demonstrates the use of polypropylene glycol (PPG) as a novel DE material. The IPNs formed were shown to exhibit excellent thermal stability and mechanical properties including lower tendency for viscous dissipation with higher dielectric permittivity compared to state of the art polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) materials.