Effect of sodium chloride on the enhanced performance of chitosan-based ion actuator

Abstract In this work, an actuate membrane and an electrode membrane were prepared by a sol-gel method. And then, they were physically pressed to form a chitosan-based ion actuator (CSIA). Importantly, the effect of sodium chloride on CSIA were investigated, the mechanical properties of CSIA were tested by establishing an output force test platform while testing its porosity. And, the electrochemical performance was tested by electrochemical workstation. At the end, the surface morphology and functional groups were measured by scanning electron microscopy and Infrared spectrogram, respectively. The results indicated that the sodium chloride mass ratio was the best at 0.4 % for CSIA. Its output force of mechanical properties could attain at 2.939 mN and the maximum porosity of 12.98 % at the same time. The specific capacitance of the electrochemical performance was up to 0.07719 F g -1 , and the minimum resistance reached 13.48 Ω. From the surface morphology and functional groups, the appropriate doping ratio of Nacl into CSIA was helpful for increasing the transport space of internal ions. The effective internal ion concentration and significantly reduced internal stress provided excellent performances under the appropriate voltage conditions. The doping of inorganic ion sodium chloride improved the internal electron transport efficiency of chitosan ion actuator, and it advanced the mechanical properties of the actuator. Hence the enhancement of Nacl output force in CSIA had a good significance for the development of inorganic salt ion strengthened ion actuator.