Benchmarking bucky gel actuators: Chemically modified commercial carbon nanotubes versus super-growth carbon nanotubes

Bucky gels are considered novel electro active polymers based on carbon nanotubes (CNTs). They are used to make electrochemical actuators that operate with a solid polymer electrolyte and so can work in air at low voltage (2-4 V) for long time with a maximum strain of approximately 1% and operating frequencies of a few tens of Hertz. It is reported in literature that the use of super-growth carbon nanotubes (SG-CNTs) affords the preparation of a composite with increased actuation performance that may considered the 'benchmark' material. We have recently shown a chemical route to modify single walled carbon nanotubes (SW-CNTs) with aromatic diamines (SW-amide) that significantly enhances the performance of bucky gel actuators through increasing the binding between CNTs. In this paper we compare the actuation performance of bucky gels made using chemically modified SW-CNTs with the one achieved using pristine SG-CNTs. The unique properties of SG-CNTs allow the preparation of actuators that outperform the ones made from pristine commercial CNTs in strain-charge and strain-frequency response but when SW-amide based actuators are compared with those made from SG-CNTs they show similar performances that stem from the increased binding between CNTs induced by the chemical modification. © 2010 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.