High Performance Soft Electrochemical Actuators Based on Hierarchical Conductive Polymer Ionogels

Electrochemical actuators based on conductive polymers are emerging as a strong competitive in the field of soft actuators because of their intrinsically conformable/elastic nature, low cost, low operating voltage and air-working ability. Recent development has shown that adding electroactive materials, such as CNT and graphene, can improve their actuation performance. Despite the complex material systems used, their output strains (one of the key factors) are generally lower than 1%, which limited further applications of them in multiple scenarios. Here, we report soft electrochemical actuators based on conductive polymer ionogels by embedding polyaniline particles between the PEDOT:PSS nanosheets. Results show that such a hierarchical structure not only leads to a high conductivity (1250 S/cm) but also improved electrochemical activities. At a low operating voltage of 1 V, the maximum strain of these soft actuators reaches an exceptional value of 1.5%, with a high blocking force of 1.3 mN. Using these high-performance electrochemical actuators, we demonstrate soft grippers for manipulating object and a bionic flower stimulated by an electrical signal. This work sets an important step towards enabling the enhanced performance of electrochemical actuators based on conductive polymers with designed microstructures.