Gas-phase microactuation using kinetically controlled surface states of ultrathin catalytic sheets
Abstract
Biological systems convert chemical energy into mechanical work by using protein catalysts that assume kinetically controlled conformational states. Synthetic chemomechanical systems using chemical catalysis have been reported, but they are slow, require high temperatures to operate, or indirectly perform work by harnessing reaction products in liquids (e.g., heat or protons). Here, we introduce a bioinspired chemical strategy for gas-phase chemomechanical transduction that sequences the elementary steps of catalytic reactions on ultrathin (<10 nm) platinum sheets to generate surface stresses that directly drive microactuation (bending radii of 700 nm) at ambient conditions (T = 20 °C; P total = 1 atm). When fueled by hydrogen gas and either oxygen or ozone gas, we show how kinetically controlled surface states of the catalyst can be exploited to achieve fast actuation (600 ms/cycle) at 20 °C. We also show that the approach can integrate photochemically controlled reactions and can be used to drive the reconfiguration of microhinges and complex origami- and kirigami-based microstructures.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- May 01, 2023
- Source ID
- 10.1073/pnas.2221740120
Entities
People
- David A. Muller
- Evangelos Smith
- Itai Cohen
- Manos Mavrikakis
- Marc Figueras
- Michael C. Cao
- Michael Reynolds
- Nanqi Bao
- Nicholas L Abbott
- Paul McEuen
- Qingkun Liu
- Wei Wang
Organizations
- Army Research Office
- Cornell University
- National Science Foundation
- University of Wisconsin–Madison