Published in Science, 'the artificial muscle in real form' can be used on multi-purposes

New artificial muscle, capable of lifting up weight 100,000 times heavier than their own weight, and generate 85 times more mechanical power during contraction than the same size natural muscle was jointly developed by the international nano research team. This research jointly developed by the team led by prof. Seon Jeong Kim of the Department of Biomedical Engineering (the above photo) and other teams consisting of researchers from University of Texas at Dallas in United States, Australia, China, Canada, and Brazil was funded by the Leader Researcher Project
(Electrically, Chemically, and Photonically Powered Torsional and Tensile Actuation of Hybrid Carbon Nanotube Yarn Muscles)

'Carbon nanotube hybrid artificial muscle' developed by the international research team including professor Kim is able to do even ▲twisting and ▲rotating movement beyond ▲bending, ▲shrinking, ▲relaxing actuations.

The new artificial muscles are made by infiltrating a volume-changing “guest,” such as the paraffin wax used for candles, into twisted yarn made of carbon nanotubes. Heating the wax-filled yarn, either electrically or using a flash of light, causes the wax to expand, the yarn volume to increase, and the yarn length to contract.

“Because of their simplicity and high performance, these yarn muscles could be used for such diverse applications as robots, catheters for minimally invasive surgery, micromotors, mixers for microfluidic circuits, tunable optical systems, microvalves, positioners and even toys and it will create big riffle effect on these field," Prof. Kim said.