We succeeded in the wide-range control of the period for the swelling-deswelling self-oscillation of a novel polymer gel by selection of the initial concentration of the Belouzov-Zhabotinsky (BZ) substrates and the temperature. The novel polymer gel was composed of a non-thermoresponsive and biocompatible poly(vi- nylpyrrolidone) (PVP) main chain covalently bonded to the ruthenium catalyst for the BZ reaction. In this study, we clarified the influence of the initial concentration of the BZ substrates and the temperature on the period and the self-oscillating behavior. By optimizing the initial concentration of the BZ substrates, we caused the swelling-deswelling self-oscillation in 0.5 Hz. The maximum frequency (0.5 Hz) of the novel gel was 20 times as large as that for the conventional-type self-oscillating gel. Moreover, we showed that the displacement of the self-oscillation for the gel has a tradeoff relationship against the period of the self- oscillation.

Related information

Publication

Nakamaru, S., Maeda, S., Hara, Y., & Hashimoto, S. (2009). Control of autonomous swelling− Deswelling behavior for a polymer gel. The Journal of Physical Chemistry B113(14), 4609-4613 (Link)

Nakamaru, S., Maeda, S., Hara, Y., & Hashimoto, S. (2009, October). Development of novel self-oscillating gel actuator for achievement of chemical robot. In 2009 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (pp. 4319-4324). IEEE. (Link)

Contribution

本マテリアルの合成, ならびにその物性評価を行なった. 材料開発のアイディアや実験結果の分析に関してはShiongo Maeda氏, Yusuke Hara氏, Shuji Hasimoto氏の協力をいただいた.