Stimuli responsive actuators: recent advances

Stimuli responsive soft actuators have gained significant interest in recent years due to their ability to move spontaneously and continuously without the need for additional energy supply. Moreover, these soft actuators possess unique advantages such as flexibility, contactless operation, and remote control, making them suitable for various technological applications ranging from bionic robotics to biomimetic devices. These features make them promising for a wide range of applications in everyday life, industries, the environment, and beyond. Due to their unique composition and structure, MXene materials exhibit a diverse range of properties including good electrical and thermal conductivity and magnetic, optical, thermal and mechanical responses. As a result, MXene materials have become attractive candidates for high-performance stimuli responsive actuators and have received extensive attention from researchers in various fields. In this review, we summarize recent advancements in MXene-based responsive actuators, focusing on multiple driving schemes such as electrical, electro-thermal, electro-chemical, magnetic, moisture, solvent, light, pressure, pH, and multi-complex systems. In addition, the performance of some other material-based responsive actuators, e.g., carbon materials, hydrogels, liquid crystals, and dielectric elastomers, are compared, and the potential opportunities and challenges are discussed. This review summarizes the recent advances in MXene-based and other materials-based responsive actuators, and their challenges and prospects are discussed.