Actuation of Ionic Polymer Metal Composites Actuator Based on without Surface Roughening of PVDF/PVP/PSSA Ionic Membrane

Recently, there have been on-going efforts to replace the Nafion (117) based ionic polymer metal composites (IPMC) actuator due to high cost of materials, less environmentally friendly nature and its back-relaxation under DC voltages. This paper proposes IPMC using Polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF)/Polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP)/Polystyrene sulfonic acid ionic membrane without surface roughening and reports the actuation of the proposed IMPC under DC and AC voltages of 1 to 2 V. The proposed IPMC were compared with IPMC using Nafion membrane without surface roughening. The actuating performances of PVDF/PVP/PSSA based actuators were found to be higher than those of Nafion based actuator under DC and AC voltages of 1 to 2 V. The ion exchange capacity (IEC) and water uptake (WUP) of PVDF/PVP/PSSA ionic membranes were found to be higher than those of the Nafion membrane. In addition, the proton conductivity of the proposed membrane was found to be nearly equal to that of the Nafion membrane.