Counterfeit works like a real thing

The bundles created in the laboratory are 100 times stronger than the real muscle, a new study suggests. These two super-strong muscle types can convert chemical energy into muscle energy, which makes them work just like the real thing.

Dr. Von Howard Ebron and colleagues, from the NanoTech Institute and the University of Texas at Dallas, have published this advance in the journal Science.

Artificial muscle can help open up a whole new kind of fuel cell muscle. This muscle receives the chemical fuel, such as hydrogen or methanol, through a circulating system, transforms it into mechanical energy, and stores excess energy for future use.

Such muscles can be used to move robots and robot skeletons, or to join structures in marine and air vehicles with different shapes.

" In the future, humanoid robots sitting next to you in bars can drink alcohol for work the next day, " said Professor Ray Baughman, lead researcher and director of the NanoTech Institute.

One of the most successful types of muscle builders consists of a sheet of elastic, non-conductive material sandwiched between two layers of conducting material. As the current passes through, negative charge and positive charge accumulate on opposite layers of this "sandwich". They attract each other and squeeze into the center of the rubber, making the bundle flexible. Generally, artificial muscles are recharged by battery or battery. But Baughman's team created two types of artificial muscle loaded with a chemical reaction, eliminating the need for short-life batteries or batteries.

T. An