On the understanding of dielectric elastomer and its application for all-soft artificial heart

Wenjie Wu; Shuangkun Zhang; Zhanpeng Wu; Sichen Qin; Fanzhu Li; Tianfu Song; Xia Cao; Zhong Lin Wang; Liqun Zhang

doi:10.1016/j.scib.2020.12.033

On the understanding of dielectric elastomer and its application for all-soft artificial heart

Sci Bull (Beijing). 2021 May 30;66(10):981-990. doi: 10.1016/j.scib.2020.12.033. Epub 2020 Dec 29.

Authors

Wenjie Wu¹, Shuangkun Zhang², Zhanpeng Wu², Sichen Qin³, Fanzhu Li⁴, Tianfu Song¹, Xia Cao⁵, Zhong Lin Wang⁶, Liqun Zhang⁷

Affiliations

¹ Center of Advanced Elastomer Materials, State Key Laboratory of Organic-Inorganic Composites, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing 100029, China; Engineering Research Center of Ministry of Education on Energy and Resource Saved Elastomers, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing 100029, China; Beijing Laboratory of Biomedical Materials, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing 100029, China.
² Key Laboratory of Carbon Fiber and Functional Polymers, Beijing University of Chemical Technology (Ministry of Education), Beijing 100029, China.
³ State Key Laboratory of Alternate Electric Power System with Renewable Energy Sources, North China Electric Power University, Beijing 102206, China.
⁴ Center of Advanced Elastomer Materials, State Key Laboratory of Organic-Inorganic Composites, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing 100029, China; Engineering Research Center of Ministry of Education on Energy and Resource Saved Elastomers, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing 100029, China; Beijing Laboratory of Biomedical Materials, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing 100029, China. Electronic address: lifanzhu@mail.buct.edu.cn.
⁵ Beijing Institute of Nanoenergy and Nanosystems, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100140, China; Research Center for Bioengineering and Sensing Technology, Beijing Key Laboratory for Bioengineering and Sensing Technology, School of Chemistry and Biological Engineering, and Beijing Municipal Key Laboratory of New Energy Materials and Technologies, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083, China.
⁶ Beijing Institute of Nanoenergy and Nanosystems, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100140, China; School of Materials Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332-0245, USA. Electronic address: zlwang@binn.cas.cn.
⁷ Center of Advanced Elastomer Materials, State Key Laboratory of Organic-Inorganic Composites, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing 100029, China; Engineering Research Center of Ministry of Education on Energy and Resource Saved Elastomers, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing 100029, China; Beijing Laboratory of Biomedical Materials, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing 100029, China. Electronic address: zhanglq@mail.buct.edu.cn.

PMID: 36654255
DOI: 10.1016/j.scib.2020.12.033

Abstract

Although dielectric elastomer (DE) with substantial actuated strain (AS) has been reported 20 years ago, its scientific understanding remains unclear. The most accepted theory of DE, which is proposed in 2000, holds the view that AS of DE is induced by the Maxwell stress. According to this theory, materials have similar ratios of permittivity and Young's modulus should have similar AS, while the experimental results are on contrary to this theory, and the experimental AS has no relationship with ideal AS. Here, a new dipole-conformation-actuated strain cross-scale model is proposed, which can be generally applied to explain the AS of DE without pre-strain. According to this model, several characteristics of an ideal DE are listed in this work and a new DE based on polyphosphazene (PPZ) is synthesized. The AS of PPZ can reach 84% without any pre-strain. At last, a PPZ-based all soft artificial heart (ASAH) is built, which works in the similar way with natural myocardium, indicating that this material has great application potential and possibility in the construction of an ASAH for heart failure (HF) patients.

Keywords: Artificial heart; Dielectric elastomer; Heart failure; Polyphosphazene.