Replacement of surface roughening using polyvinyl alcohol coating in the fabrication of nafion-based ionic polymer metal composite (IPMC) actuators

In this paper, we propose a new fabrication method for ionic polymer metal composite (IPMC) actuators using a Nafion/Polyvinyl alcohol layer coating instead of conventional surface roughening (sandblasting) to achieve good adhesion of a Pt electrode. Compared with the Nafion membrane, the proposed membranes (NNP25 and NNP50) have increased mechanical properties (tensile strength and Young’s moduli). In addition, IPMCs using the proposed membranes had lower current densities than the Nafion-based IPMC. Therefore, compared with the Nafion-based IPMC, the proposed NNP25- and NNP50-based IPMCs had higher blocking forces, but lower tip displacements. Consequently, through the proposed simple procedure and cost-effective fabrication method using a Nafion/Polyvinyl alcohol layer coating, we can fabricate that the proposed IPMC actuators have enhanced mechanical properties in comparison with the sandblasting surface roughening used in the conventional IPMC fabrication method.