Scientists have invented a material to create comfortable and safe artificial muscles. Reported by the American Chemical Society.
The limbs of humans and animals move thanks to muscles made up of contractile fibers. At the same time, for decades, engineers have not been able to find an equally effective linear mover for robots that is powerful, reliable, light, simple, and most importantly, capable of clamping and decompressing quickly. One of the promising types of such materials are polymer brushes based on electroactive elastomers.
Dorina Opris and her colleagues have proposed a way to lower the operating voltage of electroactive elastomers, which is currently 4000 volts. This is far beyond the safety standards set in many countries, and this will make it difficult to use such electric muscles, even if they are successfully created. To reduce stress, the authors suggested reducing the thickness of the films that make up the brushes.
As a result, the researchers synthesized a series of polymers for brushes by reacting polydimethylsiloxane macromonomers with norbornene under ultraviolet light. Material with a thickness of 60 microns turned out to be the most electroactive, expanding more than previously formed elastomers at an operating voltage of 1000 volts. The drive made of this material has withstood 10,000 operating cycles before failing.
The results of this study offer hope that in the future the working voltage of the electromuscular can be further reduced and ideally brought to a safe 50 volts.