Effect of CaCl2 and glycerol on response performance of biological gel electric actuator

Currently problems of large toxicity, poor biocompatibility and high cost between polymer and crosslinking agent are found in traditional ionic gel electric actuator. To conquer such challenges, in this work, sodium alginate(SA) and calcium chloride(CaCl2) were used to produce the biological gel electric actuator (BGEA). Furthermore, to achieve better response performance of the BGEA, two kinds of BGEAs with different concentrations of CaCl2 and different concentrations of glycerol were prepared experimentally, and then the response performance of the BGEA was studied. The effect of calcium chloride on the BGEA showed that the concentration of calcium chloride had a great influence on the response performance of the BGEA, and the best concentration of calcium chloride was 0.95 g L−1. Compared with the BGEA without crosslinking, the response speed and deflection displacement were increased by 1.64 times and 1.52 times respectively. The effect of glycerol on BGEA showed that although the response speed of the BGEA without glycerol was faster, the BGEA itself was dry, easy to break and weak to the external shock. Therefore, adding 1 ml of glycerol into the electrolyte membrane of the BGEA, not only increases the deflection displacement of the BGEA, but also avoids large reduction in its response speed.