Large-Magnitude Transformable Liquid-Metal Composites

Hongzhang Wang, Youyou Yao, Xiangjiang Wang, Lei Sheng, Xiao Hu Yang, Yuntao Cui, Pengju Zhang, Wei Rao, Rui Guo, Shuting Liang, Weiwei Wu, Jing Liu*, Zhi Zhu He

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

50 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Most of the existing robots would find it difficult to stretch and transform all parts of their body together due to rigid components and complex actuation mechanisms inside. Here, we presented a highly transformable liquid-metal composite (LMC) that is easy to change shape in large magnitude and resume its original state again according to need. When subject to heating, part of the ethanol droplets embedded in the composite would change phase and then actuate. We demonstrate the flexible transformation of LMC-made octopus from a two-dimensional shape into several predictable three-dimensional shapes freely on a large scale (even up to 11 times its initial height) through remote wireless heating, which needs no sophisticated operating system at all. Further, several designed behaviors, such as movement of octopus and entangling objects of soft robots, are also realized. Theoretical analysis of the heating-induced liquid-vapor transition of the embedded ethanol droplet interprets the mechanisms involved. The present findings open a new way to fabricate functional transformable composites that would find significant applications in developing future generation soft robots.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)2311-2319
Number of pages9
JournalACS Omega
Volume4
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 30 Jan 2019
Externally publishedYes

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Wang, H., Yao, Y., Wang, X., Sheng, L., Yang, X. H., Cui, Y., Zhang, P., Rao, W., Guo, R., Liang, S., Wu, W., Liu, J., & He, Z. Z. (2019). Large-Magnitude Transformable Liquid-Metal Composites. ACS Omega, 4(1), 2311-2319. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsomega.8b03466