The square rod-shaped ionic polymer-metal composite and its application in interventional surgical guide device

Ionic polymer-metal composite (IPMC) is an electro-active polymer material, which has many advantages such as small size, light weight, low driving voltage, large strain, and good biocompatibility. However, the conventional sheet IPMC has the shortcoming of only bending in the two-dimensional plane, which greatly limits the application of IPMC in the field of interventional surgery. In this work, a square rod-shaped IPMC with multi-degree-of-freedom motion was fabricated, and the displacement and blocking force of the square rod-shaped IPMC in different directions are measured and analyzed under the DC voltage signal. An interventional catheter was designed using the square rod-shaped IPMC in order to achieve active guidance, and a simulation experiment platform and a model of human aorta were built to successfully complete the in vitro simulation experiment of interventional surgery, which preliminarily verified the feasibility of the square rod-shaped IPMC in the field of interventional surgery.