抄録
Stimuli-responsive polymer gels have been applied to soft actuators. In most case, the mechanical motion is powered by external stimuli, for example, reversing the direction of electric field. On the other hand, many living creatures generate an active motion without external driving stimuli like self-beating of heart muscle. Here we show a novel active oscillating gel actuator driven by the chemical energy without switching of external stimuli. The self-oscillating motion is produced by the chemical energy of the Belouzov-Zhabotinsky(BZ) reaction occurring inside the gel. However, the displacement of the BZ gel is so small. In this study, we focus on the kinetics of the gels. In general, the relaxation time of shrinking or swelling is given by τ〜R^2, where R is the characteristic length. So, we created the hollow BZ gel and analyzed the motion.
