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Research Highlight

Carbon Nanotubes Provide “Muscle” to Polymers

Carbon Nanotubes Provide “Muscle” to Polymers
Top: Photograph of cured n-LCE being held and stretched by CNMS researcher. Bottom: (A) Stress–strain curves for LCEs and n-LCEs, parallel (solid lines) and perpendicular (dashed lines) to the axis of orientation; (B) Raman signal intensity of G0 band of SWCNT (black) and mesogenic peak (red) of LCE as a function of crystal alignment direction relative to incoming laser polarization. The Raman signal intensity is maximized when SWCNT alignment is parallel to laser polarization.

Scientific Achievement

Aligned single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) added to liquid crystal elastomers (LCE) demonstrate  ~18% strain electrostrictive response, converting molecular motion to macroscale movement.

Significance and Impact

Large-scale synthesis under mild conditions yields 94% of nanocomposite liquid crystal elastomer (n-LCE) with a molecular weight of 20 000 Da (PDI =1.7) hereby overcoming issues with scalability.

Research Details

- n-LCEs were prepared via photo-crosslinking of a liquid crystalline oligomeric (LCO) mixture containing SWCNTs.

- The SWCNT composites contract over 4% against a 140 kPa load, which is above the blocking force of many natural muscle tissues at ambient conditions and suggests that n-LCE nanocomposites are a promising material for soft robotics.

 

T. Guin, H. E. Hinton, E. Burgeson, C. C. Bowland, L. T. Kearney, Y. Li, I. Ivanov, N. A. Nguyen, and A. K. Naskar, "Tunable Electromechanical Liquid Crystal Elastomer Actuators," Adv. Intell. Syst. 2, 2000022 (2020).