{"id":213774,"date":"2025-05-11T13:03:40","date_gmt":"2025-05-11T18:03:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/05\/how-water-vapor-is-powering-the-next-generation-of-soft-robots"},"modified":"2025-05-11T13:03:40","modified_gmt":"2025-05-11T18:03:40","slug":"how-water-vapor-is-powering-the-next-generation-of-soft-robots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/05\/how-water-vapor-is-powering-the-next-generation-of-soft-robots","title":{"rendered":"How water vapor is powering the next generation of soft robots"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"display: block; margin: 0 auto; width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 4\/3; object-fit: contain;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/yqiPn_GprtE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope;\n   picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Phase-change actuation has been revived for the era of untethered, electrically driven soft robots. Our team at the University of Coimbra have developed a phase transition soft actuator designed to power electric soft robots that require high force and precision. Our innovation leverages the liquid-to-gas phase transition of water to generate mechanical motion in a way that is simple, scalable, and remarkably powerful.<\/p>\n<p>Unlike traditional soft actuators, which often rely on bulky pneumatics, exotic materials, or high voltages, our design exploits a well-known process: boiling. Using a tiny embedded heater, our <a href=\"https:\/\/techxplore.com\/tags\/actuator\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">actuator<\/a> transforms water into steam, generating internal pressure that drives motion in soft, flexible structures. As a result, our actuator can operate at voltages as low as 24 V, deliver forces exceeding 50 N, and achieve pressurization rates of up to 100 kPa\/s.<\/p>\n<p>Our findings are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41467-025-59023-7\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in Nature Communications.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Phase-change actuation has been revived for the era of untethered, electrically driven soft robots. Our team at the University of Coimbra have developed a phase transition soft actuator designed to power electric soft robots that require high force and precision. Our innovation leverages the liquid-to-gas phase transition of water to generate mechanical motion in a [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":732,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1635,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-213774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-materials","category-robotics-ai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/732"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213774\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}