Near future
No Result
View All Result
June 2 2023
  • Home
  • Tech
  • Health
  • Environment
  • Energy
  • Inland solutions
  • Spazio
  • AI
  • concepts
  • H+
Understand, anticipate, improve the future.
CES2023 / Coronavirus / Russia-Ukraine
Near future
  • Home
  • Tech
  • Health
  • Environment
  • Energy
  • Inland solutions
  • Spazio
  • AI
  • concepts
  • H+

Understand, anticipate, improve the future.

No Result
View All Result
Technology

An artificial "polymer" muscle lifts objects 5000 times its own weight

Will robots be able to rely on muscles based on shape memory polymers? These materials are showing very promising results.

22 September 2021
Gianluca RiccioGianluca Riccio
⚪ 2 minutes
Share18Pin5Tweet11SendShare3ShareShare2
polymers

An artificial muscle made of an elongated shape memory polymer contracts upon heating, bending the arm of a manikin. Credit: ACS Central Science

READ THIS IN:

Shape memory polymers are promising materials in many emerging applications due to their great extensibility and excellent shape recovery. When stretched or deformed, shape memory polymers can resume their normal state by simply applying heat or light.

These materials hold great promise for soft robotics, smart biomedical devices, and deployable space structures, but until now they have failed to store enough energy while being stretched. This means they don't release a lot of energy when stretching, which limited their use in activities involving lifting or moving objects.

Now, the researcher zhenanbao of Stanford University in California and his team have developed a shape memory polymer for new robotic muscles. Thanks to this solution, robots can move their arms by themselves when the polymers are heated. The new polymers can lift objects 5000 times their weight and store nearly six times more energy than previous versions.

polymers
An example of dynamics for a shape memory polymer.

More powerful, lighter, cheaper robotic muscles

Activated by heat or light, the new artificial muscle has a polymer skeleton of polypropylene glycol. To this, the researchers added units of 4-, 4'-methylene bisphenylurea. In the original state of these polymers, the chains of the material are tangled and disordered. Their stretching causes the alignment of the polymer chains and the formation of hydrogen bonds between the urea groups, creating supermolecular structures that make it stable and solid. If the polymers are then heated to 70 ° C, the hydrogen bonds break again. And what happens? The "robotic muscle" can return to its initial state, releasing energy from the bonds in the process.

The article continues after the related links

Sucralose, the bitter truth: the sweetener damages DNA

Neuralangelo, NVIDIA "sculpts" reality in 3D starting from a video

In tests, the polymer was stretched up to five times its initial length and stored up to 17,9 joules of energy per gram in its extended form, six times that of most other shape memory polymers.

To demonstrate the potential uses of these polymers, the team made an artificial muscle by attaching the pre-stretched polymer to the upper and lower arm of a wooden mannequin. When heated, the material contracts, forcing the manikin to bend the arm at the elbow.

In addition to their record-breaking energy density, shape memory polymers are also inexpensive. The raw materials to produce them cost around 20 euros per kilo. The manufacturing process is also simple, the researchers say. Under with the new generation muscles?



GPT Chat Megaeasy!

Concrete guide for those approaching this artificial intelligence tool, also designed for the school world: many examples of applications, usage indications and ready-to-use instructions for training and interrogating Chat GPT.

To submit articles, disclose the results of a research or scientific discoveries write to the editorial staff

Most read of the week

  • Oculus gives VR visit to the Anne Frank house

    268 Shares
    Share 107 Tweet 67
  • Here comes a new magnetic field reversal. We are ready?

    4 Shares
    Share 1 Tweet 1
  • Even the giants "miss": 5 prophecies about the future that are blatantly wrong

    4 Shares
    Share 1 Tweet 1
  • Hibernation "on demand": steps towards long space travel

    6 Shares
    Share 1 Tweet 1
  • Inhale, exhale, remember: the links between breath and memory are getting stronger and stronger

    4 Shares
    Share 1 Tweet 1

Enter the Telegram channel of Futuroprossimo, click here. Or follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Mastodon e LinkedIn.

The daily tomorrow.


Futuroprossimo.it provides news on the future of technology, science and innovation: if there is something that is about to arrive, here it has already arrived. FuturoProssimo is part of the network ForwardTo, studies and skills for future scenarios.

FacebookTwitterInstagramTelegramLinkedInMastodonPinterestTikTok
  • Environment
  • Architecture
  • Artificial intelligence
  • Gadgets
  • concepts
  • Design
  • Medicine
  • Spazio
  • Robotica
  • Work
  • Inland solutions
  • Energy
  • Edition Francaise
  • Deutsche Ausgabe
  • Japanese version
  • English Edition
  • Portuguese Edition
  • Русское издание
  • Spanish edition

Subscribe to our newsletter

  • The Editor
  • Advertising on FP
  • Privacy Policy

© 2022 Near future - Creative Commons License
This work is distributed under license Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International.

No Result
View All Result
Understand, anticipate, improve the future.
  • Home
  • Tech
  • Health
  • Environment
  • Energy
  • Inland solutions
  • Spazio
  • AI
  • concepts
  • H+