High-fidelity bioelectronic muscular actuator based on porous carboxylate bacterial cellulose membrane

[Display omitted] •We developed a novel dry-type muscular actuator based on porous carboxylate bacterial cellulose (CBC) membrane.•The porous CBC membrane was prepared by ZnO particulate leaching method.•The proposed actuator showed better actuation performance than that of the pure CBC actuator. Human-friendly electronic products, such as smart mobile phones, soft haptic devices, wearable electronics, and implantable or disposal biomedical devices, will require the use of high-performance durable soft electroactive actuators with eco-friendly, biocompatible, and biodegradable functionalities. Here, we report a high-fidelity bioelectronic muscular actuator based on porous carboxylate bacterial cellulose (CBC) membranes fabricated using the facile zinc oxide (ZnO) particulate leaching (PL) method. The proposed CZ-PL muscular actuator exhibits large deformation, low actuation voltage, fast response, and high-durability in open air environment. In particular, the CZ-PL membrane shows a dramatic increase in the ionic liquid uptake ratio, ionic exchange capacity, and ionic conductivity of up to 70.63%, 22.50%, and 18.2%, respectively, for CBC, resulting in a 5.8 times larger bending deformation than that of the pure CBC actuator. The developed high-performance CZ-PL muscular actuator can be a promising candidate for meeting the tight requirements of human-friendly electronic devices such as wearable devices, biomimetic robots, and biomedical active devices.