Strain and energy efficiency of polyaniline fiber electrochemical actuators in aqueous electrolytes.

The electrochemical linear actuation of polyaniline fiber actuators has been studied in a variety of acidic aqueous electrolytes. Experimental results show that the linear strain changes significantly but nonlinearly with the anion volume. For anions smaller than Br-, a larger strain was obtained for a larger anion, that is, Br- > Cl- > F-, while once the anion was larger than Br-, a larger anion produced a smaller strain, that is, BF4- > ClO4- > CF3SO3-. On the basis of the definition of the ECR (elongation/charge ratio), that is, the contribution of a unit charge to fiber elongation, the maximum linear strain can be estimated by assuming the electrochemical efficiency is 100%. Furthermore, under isotonic conditions and the application of a constant voltage, the energy efficiency without energy recovery was shown to be proportional to the ECR and applied force and inversely proportional to the applied voltage. Under the same conditions, the highest energy efficiency is obtained in HBr. By assuming that ion and solvent insertion contributes mostly to the fiber expansion, a simple mathematical description is developed for the linear strain to show how it is determined by the volume and carried charge of the insert complex and the anisotropicity of the fiber. The difference between the theoretical and experimental results suggests that due to the crystallite structure, not all exchanged charge contributes to the fiber expansion. As the anion becomes larger, it may become more difficult for the anions to be inserted into the polymer fiber.