Electro-Responsive 4D-Printable Polymer Nanocomposites for Artificial Muscles (PolyARM)

人工肌肉是一种新兴类型的电响应性材料，在受到外部刺激时可以膨胀或收缩，在医疗行业具有巨大的潜力，例如在智能假肢方面，以及在制造轻量级敏感机器人和类似应用的材料方面。天然肌肉是一种令人难以置信的材料系统，能够处理巨大的应变，利用高能量密度和目前人造材料无法比拟的广泛频率。这项提议旨在通过开发新的4D可打印纳米复合材料来解决这个问题，这种材料可以促进机电响应。这些材料将被制造成基于主动/被动层状聚合物的材料，从而产生与当前最先进的技术相比具有更高机械强度和高效电响应的新型人造肌肉。石墨烯和碳纳米管是能够产生所需介电性能的纳米膜的理想候选者；在前期工作的基础上，本工作将进一步研究它们的负载、分散以及与聚合物基质的界面相互作用。这些4D可打印的聚合物纳米复合材料的潜力将通过3D打印人造肌肉来展示，并通过机械和电化学测试来表征其结构和性能，并辅之以原位同步加速器技术。

Artificial muscles are an emerging type of electro-responsive material that can expand or contract when being subjected to external stimuli, and have huge potential in the medical industry, in, e.g., smart prosthetics, and in manufacturing lightweight sensitive robotics and materials for similar applications. Natural muscle is an incredible material system capable of handling immense strain, utilising high energy densities and a broad range of frequencies currently unmatched by man-made materials. This proposal aims to address this issue by developing new 4D-printable nanocomposite materials that can facilitate an electromechanical response. These materials will be fabricated into active / passive layered polymer-based materials, resulting in new artificial muscles with improved mechanical strength and efficient electrical response versus the current state-of-the-art. Graphene and carbon nanotubes are ideal candidates for nanofillers that can produce the required dielectric properties; building on findings from preliminary work, their loading, dispersion and interfacial interaction with the polymer matrix will be further investigated in this work. The potential of these 4D-printable polymer nanocomposite materials will be demonstrated by 3D-printing artificial muscles and characterising their structure and properties using mechanical and electrochemical testing, complemented by in situ synchrotron techniques.