Rejuvenation of soft material-actuator

Akin to the natural tissues, soft artificial muscles possess a life cycle limited by aging and degradation phenomena. Here, we propose a rejuvenation method aimed at silicone-ethanol soft composite actuators, in which ethanol escape occurs during prolonged actuation, thus compromising their performance. The rejuvenation is achieved by immersion of the material-actuator in ethanol, allowing its diffusion into the silicone-based material until saturation. Repeatable rejuvenation of a soft robot, based on the soft material-actuator, resulted in retention of up to 100% of its functionality. Thus, we suggest that this method may be used for the rejuvenation of soft artificial muscles and material-actuators.