Influence of Plasticizers on the Electromechanical Behavior of a P(VDF‐TrFE‐CTFE) Terpolymer: Toward a High Performance of Electrostrictive Blends

This work aims at providing a complete analysis of the effect of plasticizers on the electrostrictive terpolymer performance. To achieve this, several plasticizing agents such as 2‐ethylhexyl phtalate (DEHP), diisononyl phtalate (DINP), and palamoll 652 have been incorporated in the polymer matrix. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed novel materials exhibited excellent electromechanical enhancement in terms of transverse strain and mechanical energy density under a moderate electric field, which is definitively critical in recent microscale actuation. Another objective of this article was to explore material characteristics as a function of the DINP content, and it was found that the plasticizer weigh fraction was the key parameter determining performance of the modified fluorinate terpolymer blends. Accordingly, it was revealed that high performance flexible actuators can be achieved merely by employing a simple and cheap plasticizer, thus making it possible to overcome the current technological barrier of conventional electroactive polymers that suffer from the high applied electric field usually required to reach sufficient strain. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part B: Polym. Phys. 2017 , 55, 355–369