Taipei, Taiwan (BBN)– Scientists at the National Taiwan University have synthesized artificial muscles by gold-plating an onion layer.
Their work has been published this week in the journal Applied Physics Letter, reports Science Recorder.
Chien-Chun Chen, Wen-Pin Shih and colleagues worked on artificial muscles in the past.
While looking for a way to increase the ability of a muscle to bend or stretch if stimulated, researchers found that onions contain dimensions and a cellular structure not unlike their previous efforts.
Just under the papery shell of an onion is the epidermis, a thin and translucent tightly packed layer acting as its skin.
It is this feature that led Chen, Shih and colleagues to believe that the onions have potential.
Artificial muscles until now were only capable of either contracting or bending but not both processes together.
The onion cells were treated with acid to remove hemicellulose, a protein necessary for rigidity in cell walls.
The sides of a single onion layer were coated with gold. When charged with a current, the onion cells were capable of stretching and bending like muscle.
Different thicknesses of gold plating allowed them to adjust the strength of the contractions.
We found that the single-layer lattice structure can generate unique actuation modes that engineered artificial muscle has never achieved before,” said Shih.
The researchers put together two different artificial muscles to form tweezers which picked up a small ball of cotton.
The study shows a great deal of promise for future research creating muscles for humanoid robots, making textiles that can be adjusted to comfort levels, and also improving future prosthetics.
The study was backed by Taiwan’s Ministry of Science and Technology and the Nano-Electro-Mechanical-systems Research Center at the National Taiwan