Electro-active paper made with aqueous cellulose solution

Electro-Active Paper (EAPap) is attractive for EAP actuator due to its merits in terms of lightweight, dry condition, large displacement output, low actuation voltage and low power consumption. EAPap actuator has been made with cellulose material. Cellulose fibers are dissolved into a solution and cast in a sheet form, and a thin gold electrode is made on it. The cellulose solution has been made according to the viscous process that uses aqueous solvent NaOH/Urea. The use of strong alkali aqueous solvent results in decreasing hydrogen-bond of cellulose molecules. It makes EAPap material possessing ionic behavior. This paper presents the fabrication process and the performance evaluation of EAPap in terms of free displacement with respect to frequency and activation voltage.