Actuation of flash welded polyaniline

INOR 261

Christina O. Baker, cbaker@chem.ucla.edu1, Peter C. Innis2, Geoff Spinks2, Gordon G. Wallace2, and Richard B. Kaner, kaner@chem.ucla.edu1. (1) Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and California NanoSystems Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, 607 Charles E. Young Drive East, Box 951569, Los Angeles, CA 90095, (2) ARC Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science and the Intelligent Polymer Research Institute, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, 2522, Australia
Polyaniline and other conducting polymers have shown promise in actuator devices for more than a decade. In typical bending actuators an inert stiff material is adhered to a dense form of the conducting polymer. Polyaniline nanofibers exhibit an exceptional photothermal effect in which they instantaneously melt and cross-link upon exposure to a camera flash. Flash welding allows the rapid formation of an asymmetric membrane with a dense cross-linked and melted upper layer and a porous active lower layer. The nanofibrillar layer allows ions to exchange rapidly in and out of the open network while the inactive layer is considerably thinner and not as stiff as most materials previously used. This allows an increased degree of bending and faster actuation than that seen with traditional and even integrally skinned asymmetric membranes.
 

Nanoscience: Applications
7:00 PM-10:00 PM, Sunday, August 19, 2007 BCEC -- Exhibit Hall - B2, Poster

Sci-Mix
8:00 PM-10:00 PM, Monday, August 20, 2007 BCEC -- Exhibit Hall - B2, Sci-Mix

Division of Inorganic Chemistry

The 234th ACS National Meeting, Boston, MA, August 19-23, 2007