State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Donghua University, Shanghai, 201620, P. R. China.
Shanghai Key Laboratory of Sleep Disordered Breathing, Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Otolaryngology Institute of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai Sixth People's Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, 200233, P. R. China.
Adv Mater. 2024 Feb;36(5):e2305914. doi: 10.1002/adma.202305914. Epub 2023 Dec 5.
Artificial muscles are indispensable components for next-generation robotics to mimic the sophisticated movements of living systems and provide higher output energies when compared with real muscles. However, artificial muscles actuated by electrochemical ion injection have problems with single actuation properties and difficulties in stable operation in air. Here, air-working electrochromic artificial muscles (EAMs) with both color-changing and actuation functions are reported, which are constructed based on vanadium pentoxide nanowires and carbon tube yarn. Each EAM can generate a contractile stroke of ≈12% during stable operation in the air with multiple color changes (yellow-green-gray) under ±4 V actuation voltages. The reflectance contrast is as high as 51%, demonstrating the excellent versatility of the EAMs. In addition, a torroidal EAM arrangement with fast response and high resilience is constructed. The EAM's contractile stroke can be displayed through visual color changes, which provides new ideas for future artificial muscle applications in soft robots and artificial limbs.
人工肌肉对于下一代机器人来说是不可或缺的组成部分，它们可以模仿生命系统的复杂运动，并提供比真实肌肉更高的输出能量。然而，通过电化学离子注入驱动的人工肌肉存在单一驱动性能的问题，并且在空气中稳定运行困难。在这里，我们报道了具有变色和驱动功能的空气工作电致变色人工肌肉（EAMs），它是基于五氧化二钒纳米线和碳管纱线构建的。每个 EAM 在空气稳定运行时可以产生约 12%的收缩冲程，在 ±4 V 的驱动电压下可以进行多次颜色变化（黄-绿-灰）。反射率对比度高达 51%，显示出 EAMs 的卓越多功能性。此外，还构建了具有快速响应和高弹性的环形 EAM 排列。EAM 的收缩冲程可以通过视觉颜色变化显示出来，这为未来在软机器人和假肢中应用人工肌肉提供了新的思路。
