A Chemo-Mechanical Rotational Actuator Driven by BZ Reaction

Abstract

This paper introduces and describes a novel chemical robotic actuator which is driven by the Belousov-Zhanbotinsky (BZ) reaction. It is known that the BZ reaction generates the redox oscillation, and when it occurs inside a thermo-sensitive polymer gel, a spontaneous mechanical oscillation is generated (Self-oscillating gel). Our research aim is to construct a chemo-mechanical actuator using the self-oscillating gel as a part of a robot controlled by chemical reaction networks