Characteritazion of poly[ferrocenylsilane] hydrogels as sensor-actuators

The goal of the work is the characterization and viscoelastic modelling of organometallic polyanionic hydrogels of poly[ferrocenylsilane] (PFS), to produce actuators. This material is an ionic electroactive polymer (EAP), which contracts and expands reversibly during oxidation and reduction. To mechanically and electrochemically characterize it, an innovative device was designed and prototyped. The mechanical characteristics were defined by relaxation tests. The best theoretical viscoelastic model experimentally evaluated was Maxwell’s and Kelvin-Voight’s in series. During electrochemical expansion, the relationship between generated thrust, sample size and integrated charge transfer was observed.