Enhanced Electromechanical Performance of Dielectric Elastomer by Co-Crosslinking of Silane-Functionalized TiO2 with Polyacrylate

Dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) are attracting much attention as candidates for next-generation flexible actuation. Among various DE matrices, polyacrylate rubber (AR) is especially promising owing to their intrinsically high dielectric constant (εr) and good mechanical performance. In particular, its mechanical behavior is close to that of porcine bladder tissue, making it a potentially good material for soft biomedical actuators for artificial bladder constructs. To achieve high actuated strain, which requires high εr, high breakdown strength, and low elastic modulus, an AR DE composite filled with silane-functionalized TiO2 was fabricated, exhibiting good electromechanical performance enabled by strengthened interfacial polarization. To improve compatibility between TiO2 and AR matrix, TiO2 was preferentially modified with a silane coupling agent (CA) that features a double bond as its functional group, which can be introduced on TiO2 surface and participate in vulcanization with AR, thereby forming co-crosslinking bridges that strengthen interfacial bonding, improve filler dispersion, and increase interfacial polarizability within the matrix. As a result, at relatively low filler loadings, the composite exhibits a significantly increased εr, while maintaining low modulus, low dielectric loss and high elasticity. The 10 CA@TiO2/AR composite exhibits a maximal actuated strain of 7.9% at 31.9 kV/mm without pre-stretch, which is 1.48 times that of pure AR and 1.32 times that of the 10 TiO2/AR composite.