Electro-Responsive 4D-Printable Polymer Nanocomposites for Artificial Muscles (PolyARM)

Artificial muscles are an emerging type of electro-responsive material that can expand or contract when being subjected to external stimuli, and have huge potential in the medical industry, in, e.g., smart prosthetics, and in manufacturing lightweight sensitive robotics and materials for similar applications. Natural muscle is an incredible material system capable of handling immense strain, utilising high energy densities and a broad range of frequencies currently unmatched by man-made materials. This proposal aims to address this issue by developing new 4D-printable nanocomposite materials that can facilitate an electromechanical response. These materials will be fabricated into active / passive layered polymer-based materials, resulting in new artificial muscles with improved mechanical strength and efficient electrical response versus the current state-of-the-art. Graphene and carbon nanotubes are ideal candidates for nanofillers that can produce the required dielectric properties; building on findings from preliminary work, their loading, dispersion and interfacial interaction with the polymer matrix will be further investigated in this work. The potential of these 4D-printable polymer nanocomposite materials will be demonstrated by 3D-printing artificial muscles and characterising their structure and properties using mechanical and electrochemical testing, complemented by in situ synchrotron techniques.