ELECTROMECHANICAL CHARACTERIZATON OF BUCKY GEL ACTUATOR BASED ON POLYMER COMPOSITE PCL-PU-CNT FOR ARTIFICIAL MUSCLE

Artificial Muscle is a common term for material that able to actuate because of external stimulus such as electric. The Artificial Muscle has promising future in application of medical and robotic disciplines. Bucky Gel Actuator is one example of Artificial Muscle which consists of electrolyte layers sandwiched with electrode layers. In this paper, we proposed an alternative material for electrode and electrolyte layers. The electrolyte layer was synthesized from Polycaprolactone-Polyurethane copolymer (PCL-PU). On the other hand, the electrode layer was composited between PCL-PU and carbon nanotube (CNT) in percentage of 0.5, 1.5, and 2.4 wt%. Furthermore, we measured electrode conductivity and elastic modulus as key physical properties for our artificial muscle. Our results have shown that the polymer electrode starts to be conducting at a mixture of 2.4 wt% CNT. At this concentration, the elastic modulus is 6.2 MPa and its conductivity is 1.6 Sm-1.