Vinylsilane-rich silicone filled by polydimethylsiloxane encapsulated carbon black particles for dielectric elastomer actuator with enhanced out-of-plane actuations

Due to an extremely low permittivity, silicone based dielectric elastomer actuator (DEA) needs to be triggered by a very high voltage, thus endures the risks of electrical breakdown and creep rupture. To address this problem, polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) encapsulated carbon black (PCB) particles are filled in a vinylsilane-rich silicone (VRS) to obtain a hybrid PCB/VRS film with enhanced mechanical and insulation properties. The detected Young’s modulus and dielectric permittivity of the hybrid film containing 5.82 vol% PCB increase by 613 and 244% compared to the pure film, respectively. PDMS’ encapsulation effectively prevents the adjacent PCB particles forming conductive networks, thus the resultant PCB/VRS composite presents an enhanced breakdown strength of 63.31 V/μm and an attenuated dielectric loss of 0.078, which benefit DEA working. Triggered by a relatively low electrical field of 7.14 V/μm, the hybrid DEA exhibits better out-of-plane actuations compared to the pure DEA: 1.91-fold in flection amplitude, 2.79-fold in areal strain, and 4.35-fold in force output.