In this paper we are reporting a newely developed IPMC fabrication method, "IPMC Paint", which can be directly sprayed onto any complex surface. In order to fabricate the IPMC paint, liquid Nafion^TM was used for the ionic conducting polymer instead of the typical film/sheet type Nafion^TM. The viscosity of liquid Nafion^TM was adjusted by adding Polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) to perform spray painting. Modified Nafion was sprayed onto the conducting substrate, Polyfoil^TM which acts as base electrode layer. After three times spraying, ionic polymer layer has 45 μm thickness and 10 μm of surface roughness. Sensing tests show that IPMC paint sensor has more sensitivity (± 0.06 of producing voltage) than that of the typical IPMC (± 0.005 of producing voltage) when dynamic bending with 10 Hz frequency and 1.3 cm of displacement is applied to.

Date Published: 10 April 2008
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 6927, Electroactive Polymer Actuators and Devices (EAPAD) 2008, 69270B (10 April 2008); doi: 10.1117/12.775649

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 6927:
Electroactive Polymer Actuators and Devices (EAPAD) 2008
Yoseph Bar-Cohen, Editor(s)