3 Modeling carbon-based smart materials

Abstract

Smart materials show changes in their properties in a predictable manner upon application of external stimuli, such as chemical, electrical, thermal, mechanical, magnetic and light ones. Our knowledge about smart materials exists from the era of Roman Empire: there are several evidences that building materials used at that time, mainly mixtures of several compounds including limestone, had self-healing capabilities, since they were able to repair cracks by the simple action of rainwater Modern smart materials are opening up new opportunities in several fields, for instance, healthcare, defense, waste management and packaging. In fact, these materials are widely used in applications such as sensors, actuators, robots, artificial muscles and drug delivery. Smart materials can be classified based on their responses to the external stimuli, that is, shape memory, piezoelectric, photoresponsive, electroresponsive, magnetoresponsive and thermochromic materials.