Engineering Commons^™

A Cost-Effective Fabrication Method For Ionic Polymer-Metal Composites, Jonathan Stolk, Michael Siripong, Susan Fredholm, Que Anh Nguyen, Brian Shih, Johannah Itescu

Michael Siripong

To date, many processes have been used for the preparation of ionic polymer-metal composite (IPMC) artificial muscle membranes from conductive metals and perfluorosulfonic polymers such as Nafion. The most widely used of these methods is the platinum plating process, which involves chemical reduction of ionic salt solutions. Although these chemical electroding techniques produce IPMCs with outstanding surface electrodes and excellent performance characteristics, they are relatively costly and time-consuming. In this paper, we describe a novel fabrication process for fast preparation of low-cost Ni-Au-Nafion IPMCs. The process involves the formation of an adherent surface layer on prepared Nafion through DC sputter …