Improving the manufacturing speed and the reproducibility of ionic CNT actuators by the use of screen printed electrodes

Electroactive polymer (EAP) actuators based on carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have found great interest in research and have the potential to be used in the field of soft robotics. They provide many advantages such as a low driving voltage, a noiseless movement and are lightweight. However, up to now ionic CNT actuators are not ready to be integrated into products that are ready-to-market. This is due to their moderate performance and their low reproducibility. In this poster the focus is on the reproducibility and the manufacturing speed of screen printed ionic CNT EAP actuators. The manufacturing of solution processed actuators can be divided into two steps. Firstly, the dispersion for the separator and the electrodes has to be made. Secondly, these materials have to be processed with different coating technologies. Commonly the dispersion is made by the use of a magnetic stirrer which in general is a slow dispersing method. In contrast an ultrasonic horn is used to reduce the time that is required to make the dispersion for the electrodes. Casting into a mould is mostly used to make the separation layers and the electrodes. With this technique thick layers can be realized, again however, solidification using this method is time consuming due to the large amount of solvent which has to evaporate. To reduce the manufacturing time of actuators and to improve the reproducibility, screen printing is used to print the electrodes of ionic CNT EAP actuators.