TY - JOUR
T1 - Nanostructured block copolymer muscles
AU - Lang, Chao
AU - Lloyd, Elisabeth C.
AU - Matuszewski, Kelly E.
AU - Xu, Yifan
AU - Ganesan, Venkat
AU - Huang, Rui
AU - Kumar, Manish
AU - Hickey, Robert J.
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research under the Young Investigator Prize (award 18RT0680, R.J.H.), the National Science Foundation through the DMREF programme (CMMI 2119717, R.J.H.) and the Materials Research Institute seed grant from The Pennsylvania State University (R.J.H.). M.K. was supported by National Science Foundation grant CBET 1946392 and DMREF programme CMMI 1627197. V.G. was supported in part by the Welch Foundation (grant F-1599). This research used the Complex Materials Scattering beamline of the National Synchrotron Light Source II, a US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility operated for the DOE Office of Science by Brookhaven National Laboratory under contract number DE-SC0012704. TEM, SEM, SAXS and WAXS measurements were taken at the Materials Characterization Lab (MCL) in the Materials Research Institute (MRI) at The Pennsylvania State University.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.
PY - 2022/7
Y1 - 2022/7
N2 - High-performance actuating materials are necessary for advances in robotics, prosthetics and smart clothing. Here we report a class of fibre actuators that combine solution-phase block copolymer self-assembly and strain-programmed crystallization. The actuators consist of highly aligned nanoscale structures with alternating crystalline and amorphous domains, resembling the ordered and striated pattern of mammalian skeletal muscle. The reported nanostructured block copolymer muscles excel in several aspects compared with current actuators, including efficiency (75.5%), actuation strain (80%) and mechanical properties (for example, strain-at-break of up to 900% and toughness of up to 121.2 MJ m−3). The fibres exhibit on/off rotary actuation with a peak rotational speed of 450 r.p.m. Furthermore, the reported fibres demonstrate multi-trigger actuation (heat and hydration), offering switchable mechanical properties and various operating modes. The versatility and recyclability of the polymer fibres, combined with the facile fabrication method, opens new avenues for creating multifunctional and recyclable actuators using block copolymers.
AB - High-performance actuating materials are necessary for advances in robotics, prosthetics and smart clothing. Here we report a class of fibre actuators that combine solution-phase block copolymer self-assembly and strain-programmed crystallization. The actuators consist of highly aligned nanoscale structures with alternating crystalline and amorphous domains, resembling the ordered and striated pattern of mammalian skeletal muscle. The reported nanostructured block copolymer muscles excel in several aspects compared with current actuators, including efficiency (75.5%), actuation strain (80%) and mechanical properties (for example, strain-at-break of up to 900% and toughness of up to 121.2 MJ m−3). The fibres exhibit on/off rotary actuation with a peak rotational speed of 450 r.p.m. Furthermore, the reported fibres demonstrate multi-trigger actuation (heat and hydration), offering switchable mechanical properties and various operating modes. The versatility and recyclability of the polymer fibres, combined with the facile fabrication method, opens new avenues for creating multifunctional and recyclable actuators using block copolymers.
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U2 - 10.1038/s41565-022-01133-0
DO - 10.1038/s41565-022-01133-0
M3 - Article
C2 - 35654867
AN - SCOPUS:85131315792
SN - 1748-3387
VL - 17
SP - 752
EP - 758
JO - Nature Nanotechnology
JF - Nature Nanotechnology
IS - 7
ER -