Nanostructured MWCNT/Polypyrrole Actuators with Anisotropic Strain Response

Abstract

Conducting polymers (CP) as an active material in electrochemical actuators are often likened to “artificial muscles”. To transfer the isotropic change of volume in the CP component into an anisotropic actuation as in a natural muscle, different design approaches, mostly bilayer or triple layer bending devices, have been studied. Herein, we report a novel actuator design with an almost linear strain response, consisting of nanostructured aligned multi‐walled carbon nanotube arrays in which each MWCNT is individually coated with a thin layer of polypyrrole.