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research article

Synthesis of solvent-free processable and on-demand cross-linkable dielectric elastomers for actuators

Caspari, Philip
•
Nuesch, Frank A.  
•
Opris, Dorina M.
October 21, 2019
Journal of Materials Chemistry C

Dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) have gained growing interest during the last decade from both the scientific community and industry. However, the high operating voltages needed to drive these actuators reduce their application potential. To date, several reports have been published on high permittivity elastomers that can be operated at low electric fields; however, little attention has been given to their processability into thin films and reliability as dielectrics in actuators. This work presents the synthesis of low molecular weight polar polysiloxanes, which have low viscosity and can, therefore, be processed into thin films by the solvent-free doctor blade deposition technique. Additionally, the prepared polysiloxanes have vinyl end-groups which are subsequently used for cross-linking into thin films, where multifunctional thiol cross-linkers and a UV initiator are used. The prepared films are elastic and show a permittivity of about two times higher as compared to commercial polydimethylsiloxane elastomers. In addition, their elastic modulus is easily tuned between 1.2 and 0.4 MPa using a dithiol as a chain prolongation reagent, while their viscoelastic behavior is comparable to commercial silicone elastomers. When used as dielectrics in DEAs the developed elastomers allow reliable operation over 180 000 actuation cycles at reduced voltages.

  • Details
  • Metrics
Type
research article
DOI
10.1039/c9tc03391b
Web of Science ID

WOS:000490152800009

Author(s)
Caspari, Philip
Nuesch, Frank A.  
Opris, Dorina M.
Date Issued

2019-10-21

Publisher

Royal Society of Chemistry

Published in
Journal of Materials Chemistry C
Volume

7

Issue

39

Start page

12139

End page

12150

Subjects

Materials Science, Multidisciplinary

•

Physics, Applied

•

Materials Science

•

Physics

•

silicone elastomer

•

permittivity

•

composites

•

perspectives

•

enhancement

•

polymers

•

dipoles

•

strain

•

rubber

Editorial or Peer reviewed

REVIEWED

Written at

EPFL

EPFL units
UPNUES  
Available on Infoscience
October 26, 2019
Use this identifier to reference this record
https://infoscience.epfl.ch/handle/20.500.14299/162358
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