Actuators, or artificial muscles, based on conducting polymers (CPs), constitute the base for the development of promising polymeric sensing motors, tools for surgeons, or zoomorphic and anthropomorphic soft robots. They are electrochemical devices; the CP oxidation/reduction drives the exchange of ions and solvent with the electrolyte causing reversible volume variations and device actuation. Some electrochemical characterizations of these actuators have been already investigated. Moreover, some asymmetric bilayers constituted by two different conducting polymers, CP1/CP2, thus both reactive, have been described. In this study, three bilayer muscles (PPy-ClO4(Lithium perchlorate)/PPy-DBS (dodecyl benzyl sulphonate), PPy-ClO4/tape, and PPy-DBS/tape) are characterized during potential cycling in aqueous solutions. The dynamo-voltammetric (angle vs potential) and coulo-dynamic (charge vs potential) results give the reaction-driven ionic exchanges in each PPy film. Our aim in this work is to investigate the characterization of the three selected bilayer muscles, cooperative and antagonist dynamic effects.
