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Electrospinning Processing Techniques for the Manufacturing of Composite Dielectric Elastomer Fibers

Dielectric elastomers (DE) are novel composite architectures capable of large actuation strains and the ability to be formed into a variety of actuator configurations. However, the high voltage requirement of DE actuators limits their applications for a variety of applications. Fiber actuators compo...

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Autores principales: Ramirez, Mirella, Vaught, Louis, Law, Chiu, Meyer, Jacob L., Elhajjar, Rani
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8585266/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34771814
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ma14216288
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author Ramirez, Mirella
Vaught, Louis
Law, Chiu
Meyer, Jacob L.
Elhajjar, Rani
author_facet Ramirez, Mirella
Vaught, Louis
Law, Chiu
Meyer, Jacob L.
Elhajjar, Rani
author_sort Ramirez, Mirella
collection PubMed
description Dielectric elastomers (DE) are novel composite architectures capable of large actuation strains and the ability to be formed into a variety of actuator configurations. However, the high voltage requirement of DE actuators limits their applications for a variety of applications. Fiber actuators composed of DE fibers are particularly attractive as they can be formed into artificial muscle architectures. The interest in manufacturing micro or nanoscale DE fibers is increasing due to the possible applications in tissue engineering, filtration, drug delivery, catalysis, protective textiles, and sensors. Drawing, self-assembly, template-direct synthesis, and electrospinning processing have been explored to manufacture these fibers. Electrospinning has been proposed because of its ability to produce sub-mm diameter size fibers. In this paper, we investigate the impact of electrospinning parameters on the production of composite dielectric elastomer fibers. In an electrospinning setup, an electrostatic field is applied to a viscous polymer solution at an electrode’s tip. The polymer composite with carbon black and carbon nanotubes is expelled and accelerated towards a collector. Factors that are considered in this study include polymer concentration, solution viscosity, flow rate, electric field intensity, and the distance to the collector.
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spelling pubmed-85852662021-11-12 Electrospinning Processing Techniques for the Manufacturing of Composite Dielectric Elastomer Fibers Ramirez, Mirella Vaught, Louis Law, Chiu Meyer, Jacob L. Elhajjar, Rani Materials (Basel) Article Dielectric elastomers (DE) are novel composite architectures capable of large actuation strains and the ability to be formed into a variety of actuator configurations. However, the high voltage requirement of DE actuators limits their applications for a variety of applications. Fiber actuators composed of DE fibers are particularly attractive as they can be formed into artificial muscle architectures. The interest in manufacturing micro or nanoscale DE fibers is increasing due to the possible applications in tissue engineering, filtration, drug delivery, catalysis, protective textiles, and sensors. Drawing, self-assembly, template-direct synthesis, and electrospinning processing have been explored to manufacture these fibers. Electrospinning has been proposed because of its ability to produce sub-mm diameter size fibers. In this paper, we investigate the impact of electrospinning parameters on the production of composite dielectric elastomer fibers. In an electrospinning setup, an electrostatic field is applied to a viscous polymer solution at an electrode’s tip. The polymer composite with carbon black and carbon nanotubes is expelled and accelerated towards a collector. Factors that are considered in this study include polymer concentration, solution viscosity, flow rate, electric field intensity, and the distance to the collector. MDPI 2021-10-22 /pmc/articles/PMC8585266/ /pubmed/34771814 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ma14216288 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Ramirez, Mirella
Vaught, Louis
Law, Chiu
Meyer, Jacob L.
Elhajjar, Rani
Electrospinning Processing Techniques for the Manufacturing of Composite Dielectric Elastomer Fibers
title Electrospinning Processing Techniques for the Manufacturing of Composite Dielectric Elastomer Fibers
title_full Electrospinning Processing Techniques for the Manufacturing of Composite Dielectric Elastomer Fibers
title_fullStr Electrospinning Processing Techniques for the Manufacturing of Composite Dielectric Elastomer Fibers
title_full_unstemmed Electrospinning Processing Techniques for the Manufacturing of Composite Dielectric Elastomer Fibers
title_short Electrospinning Processing Techniques for the Manufacturing of Composite Dielectric Elastomer Fibers
title_sort electrospinning processing techniques for the manufacturing of composite dielectric elastomer fibers
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8585266/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34771814
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ma14216288
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