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Stepwise Artificial Yarn Muscles with Energy-Free Catch States Driven by Aluminum-Ion Insertion.

Ming RenPanpan XuYurong ZhouYulian WangLizhong DongTao ZhouJinke ChangJianfeng HeXulin WeiYulong WuXiaona WangWei ChenJiangtao DiQing-Wen Li
Published in: ACS nano (2022)
Present artificial muscles have been suffering from poor actuation step precision and the need of energy input to maintain actuated states due to weak interactions between guest and host materials or the unstable structural changes. Herein, these challenges are addressed by deploying a mechanism of reversible faradaic insertion and extraction reactions between tetrachloroaluminate ions and collapsed carbon nanotubes. This mechanism allows tetrachloroaluminate ions as a strong but dynamic "locker" to achieve an energy-free high-tension catch state and programmable stepwise actuation in the yarn muscle. When powered off, the muscle nearly 100% maintained any achieved contractile strokes even under loads up to 96,000 times the muscle weight. The actuation mechanism allowed the programmable control of stroke steps down to 1% during reversible actuation. The isometric stress generated by the yarn muscle (14.6 MPa in maximum, 40 times that of skeletal muscles) was also energy freely lockable and step controllable with high precision. Importantly, when fully charged, the muscle stored energy with a high capacity of 102 mAh g -1 , allowing the muscle as a battery to power secondary muscles or other devices.
Keyphrases
  • skeletal muscle
  • carbon nanotubes
  • physical activity
  • quantum dots
  • weight loss
  • room temperature
  • weight gain
  • blood brain barrier
  • brain injury
  • high intensity
  • body weight