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posted by janrinok on Wednesday November 06 2019, @10:31PM   Printer-friendly
from the Polymer?-More-Like-Puffermer dept.

Scientists in Sweden and Belgium have discovered a new material that expands (or contracts) by orders of magnitude in response to application of a weak electric current.

When placed in an electrolyte solution, the material expands by a factor of 100 in response to a weak positive electrical pulse. A negatively charged pulse causes the material to return to its original volume.

In follow up experiments, scientists insulated a wire with the new material. When electricity was run through the wire, the thin film of polymer absorbed water and converted to a rapidly expanding gel. When scientists repeated stronger electrical pulses, the gel expanded to a volume 300 percent larger than the film's original size.

Until now, researchers have not been successful in creating a material that was able to change volume anywhere near this significantly in response to an electric current.

There are myriad potential applications for such a substance across disciplines.

If integrated into a sponge or filter, scientists suggest the new material can manipulate via electricity to control the passage of different sized particles.

"We can control the pore size of a filter electronically, and potentially actively control the size of particles that pass through," Magnus Berggren, professor in organic electronics and director of the Laboratory of Organic Electronics at Linköping University, said in a news release.

"This means that the properties of this smart filter can be dynamically changed to allow different types or different sizes of particle to pass through. This function can be used for sieving, filtration, purification, and in process chemistry. It may also have applications in medicine and biochemistry," said.

Another possibility might be in synthetic muscles for robots and prosthetic limbs, where current research relies on activation using other methods such as heat.

Journal Reference
J. Gladisch et al., Reversible Electronic Solid–Gel Switching of a Conjugated Polymer, Advanced Science, p. 1901144, Oct. 2019. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/advs.201901144


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  • (Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday November 07 2019, @01:59AM

    by edIII (791) on Thursday November 07 2019, @01:59AM (#917101)

    It may not need to have much of any structural integrity. My first thought was a pump. Imagine a wire insulated with this material, and then sheathed in another material capable of expanding, but having the needed structural integrity. Or the outer material could just be loose rubber until electricity is applied and it swells up like a grape.

    How much energy does it take to expand? Combined with some other materials and I can see a peristaltic pump here that might be more efficient and also far less complex with no moving parts.

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