Bioinspired soft robots based on organic polymer-crystal hybrid materials with response to temperature and humidity

The capability of stimulated response by mechanical deformation to induce motion or actuation is the foundation of lightweight organic, dynamic materials for designing light and soft robots. Various biomimetic soft robots are constructed to demonstrate the vast versatility of responses and flexibili...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature communications 2023-04, Vol.14 (1), p.2287-2287, Article 2287
Main Authors: Yang, Xuesong, Lan, Linfeng, Pan, Xiuhong, Di, Qi, Liu, Xiaokong, Li, Liang, Naumov, Panče, Zhang, Hongyu
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
639/301/1005/1006
639/301/1005/1009
639/301/923/1028
639/301/923/3931
639/638/298/303
Actuation
Actuators
Biomimetic materials
Biomimetics
Chemical Sciences
Crystals
Deformation
Humanities and Social Sciences
Humidity
multidisciplinary
Organic chemistry
Polymers
Robots
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Soft robotics
Time response
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Summary:The capability of stimulated response by mechanical deformation to induce motion or actuation is the foundation of lightweight organic, dynamic materials for designing light and soft robots. Various biomimetic soft robots are constructed to demonstrate the vast versatility of responses and flexibility in shape-shifting. We now report that the integration of organic molecular crystals and polymers brings about synergistic improvement in the performance of both materials as a hybrid materials class, with the polymers adding hygroresponsive and thermally responsive functionalities to the crystals. The resulting hybrid dynamic elements respond within milliseconds, which represents several orders of magnitude of improvement in the time response relative to some other type of common actuators. Combining molecular crystals with polymers brings crystals as largely overlooked materials much closer to specific applications in soft (micro)robotics and related fields. Response by mechanical deformation to give actuation is essential in the design of soft robots. Here, the authors demonstrate that combining organic molecular crystals with polymers makes it possible to create materials with susceptible properties to changes in temperature and humidity.
ISSN:2041-1723
2041-1723
DOI:10.1038/s41467-023-37964-1