Stronger, Faster, and More Powerful Thermal and Electrochemical Artifical Muscle Yarns and Fibers

摘要

Successive generations of artificial muscle yarns and fibers have provided the understanding needed to progressively increase muscle performance. While our original electrochemical muscles based on carbon nanotube (CNT) sheets provided only about 0.1% tensile strokes, our present coiled yarn electrochemical CNT muscles provide tensile stokes as high as 12%, and 65 times the work capacity per cycle and 100 times the load-lifting capability as the same size natural muscle. Our polymer muscles made from fishing line or sewing thread, which are thermally, electrothermally, or chemically powered, can rotate at 100,000 rpm, contract 49%, generate 5 times the gravimetric power of a car engine, lift 100 times heavier loads than the same length and weight human muscle, or actuate at 7.5 cycles/s for millions of cycles. The strokes of these polymer muscles has been increased to a remarkable 9000% for applications as diverse as thermal energy harvesting and comfort-adjusting clothing. We have very recently shown that our CNT muscles can be operated in reverse to generate a gravimetric electrical power output that is higher than for any reported mechanical energy harvester for few Hz to 600 Hz frequencies. These "twistron" harvesters were used in the ocean to harvest wave energy, combined with thermally-driven artificial muscles to convert temperature fluctuations to electrical energy, sewn into textiles for use as self-powered respiration sensors, and used to power a LED and to charge a storage capacitor.