Development of Lamination-Based Technological Approach for Encapsulation of Ionic EAP Sensors

Sensors and actuators based on ionic electroactive polymers have a set of properties that are useful in biomedicine. There is an important problem of maintaining the performance of sensors made of ionic polymer-polymer and ionic polymermetal composites. To solve this problem, sensor encapsulation methods are used, due to which the electrolyte is retained inside the sensor membrane for a long time. However, not all encapsulation methods are effective and feasible for industrial production of sensors based on electroactive polymers. This work proposes a lamination-based technological approach for encapsulating such sensors using inexpensive materials. The developed approach consists of 5 technological operations and significantly increases the lifetime and stability of the manufactured sensors. The characteristics of encapsulated sensors with different geometric parameters were studied. The output signal of the 5.5 mm long encapsulated sensor decreased by 2% in 2.5 hours (sensor thickness − 0.4 mm).