Department of Applied Physics, Waseda University, 3-4-1 Okubo Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, 169-8555, Japan.
Department of Materials Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 135-8656, Japan.
Int J Mol Sci. 2010 Jan 5;11(1):52-66. doi: 10.3390/ijms11010052.
Many kinds of stimuli-responsive polymer and gels have been developed and applied to biomimetic actuators or artificial muscles. Electroactive polymers that change shape when stimulated electrically seem to be particularly promising. In all cases, however, the mechanical motion is driven by external stimuli, for example, reversing the direction of electric field. On the other hand, many living organisms can generate an autonomous motion without external driving stimuli like self-beating of heart muscles. Here we show a novel biomimetic gel actuator that can walk spontaneously with a worm-like motion without switching of external stimuli. The self-oscillating motion is produced by dissipating chemical energy of oscillating reaction. Although the gel is completely composed of synthetic polymer, it shows autonomous motion as if it were alive.
已经开发出许多种刺激响应聚合物和凝胶，并将其应用于仿生致动器或人造肌肉。当受到电刺激时会改变形状的电活性聚合物似乎特别有前途。然而，在所有情况下，机械运动都是由外部刺激驱动的，例如，反转电场的方向。另一方面，许多生物可以在没有外部驱动刺激的情况下产生自主运动，例如心肌的自行搏动。在这里，我们展示了一种新型的仿生凝胶致动器，它可以在没有外部刺激切换的情况下以类似蠕虫的运动方式自发行走。自振荡运动是通过耗散振荡反应的化学能量产生的。尽管该凝胶完全由合成聚合物组成，但它表现出自主运动，就好像它是有生命的一样。
