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

人造肌肉是一种新兴的电响应材料，当受到外部刺激时，它可以膨胀或收缩，在医疗行业中具有巨大的潜力，例如智能假肢，以及制造轻型敏感机器人和类似应用的材料。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，利用高能量密度和广泛的频率范围，目前人造材料无法比拟。本提案旨在通过开发新的可3d打印的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。这些材料将被制成主动/被动分层聚合物基材料，从而产生与目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理想的纳米填料，可以产生所需的介电性能；在初步研究的基础上，本研究将进一步研究它们的负载、分散和与聚合物基体的界面相互作用。这些可3d打印的聚合物纳米复合材料的潜力将通过3d打印人造肌肉来证明，并使用机械和电化学测试来表征其结构和性能，并辅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.