Flexible Vibrotactile Actuator Based on Soft PVC Gel Embedded Polyaniline/Silicon Dioxide Nanoparticles

Nanocomposite hybrid materials made of inorganic nanoparticles and organic polymers are fascinating to design high performance polymeric materials, customized in electronics and transportation sectors. In this concern, a soft and flexible PVC gel embedded with silicon dioxide nanoparticles (SDNs) coated with polyaniline (PANI) has been proposed as a dielectric interface in vibrotactile actuator. Soft PVC gels were achieved by plasticization using acetyltributylcitrate (ATBC), an ecofriendly green plasticizer. The optimization of plasticizer content to PVC was precisely controlled and the ratio was kept constant throughout the experiment. PANI was coated on SDN by using chemical oxidative polymerization technique in order to tune the dielectric/electronic properties and minimize the leakage current. Various quantities of PANI-SDNs were loaded to PVC; the behavior of nanocomposite PVC gels as soft vibrotactile actuators was investigated. All the composite materials were comprehensively investigated using different physico-chemical techniques and haptic performance of the optimized PANI-SDN-0.2 nanocomposite PVC gel was assessed. The following are available online at http://www.xxx.com/xxx/s1, Figure S1. Pictograph representing PANI-SDN-0.2 nanocomposite PVC gel, (a) a flat PANI-SDN-0.2 nanocomposite PVC gel, (b) demonstrating the flexibility of PANI-SDN-0.2 nanocomposite PVC gel, (c) a wavy-shaped PANI-SDN-0.2 nanocomposite PVC gel for actuator design (d) dimensions of the fabricated wavy-shaped PANI-SDN nanocomposite PVC gels. Figure S2. Illustration to demonstrate the fabrication process of the vibrotactile actuator (a) components of the vibrotactile actuator, (b) lower surface of the top layer, (c) assembled vibrotactile actuator, (d) cross-sectional image of the vibrotactile actuator. Figure S3. Experimental environment demonstrating the measurement of haptic performance of PANI-SDN nanocomposite PVC gels. Description: Instrumentation and Characterization Techniques. Figure S4. EDX spectra of PANI (Scale = 1 μm). Figure S5. EDX spectra of SDNs (Scale = 1 μm). Figure S6. EDX spectra of PANI-SDNs (Scale = 1 μm). Figure S7. EDX spectra of PANI-SDN-0.2 nanocomposite PVC gel (Scale = 1 μm). Figure S8. (a & b) FESEM micrographs of PANI-SDN-0.2 nanocomposite PVC gel with different magnitudes (Scale = 2 μm and 200 nm respectively). Figure S9. Acceleration performance of PANI-SDN-0.01, PANI-SDN-0.05, PANI-SDN-0.1, PANI-SDN-0.3, PANI-SDN-0.4 and PANI-SDN-0.5 nanocomposite PVC gel based actuators.