(44e) Selective Nanoparticle Deposition in Polymers for Functional Composite Applications

Nanoscale particles have broad applications in drug delivery, optics anti-reflectivity, conductive microelectronics, wastewater purification, and thermal management areas. Despite their potential, the aggregation and heterogeneity in the particle powders make it challenging to control their morphologies. In particular, the inability to manage their alignments during continuous and scalable macroscale processing remains a significant hurdle to reach widespread applications. When blended or hybridized with polymers, nanoparticle-containing composites are available for a wide range of industrial applications (e.g., lightweight solutions for transportation and personalized protective wearable, enhanced properties for electrical packaging and processes, incorporating smart interacting sensors and indicators, and materials offering enhanced electrical performance and reliability, especially high performance thermal and/or electrical conductivity, and UV/IR/radiation shielding). The same challenge is the scalability to enable end-users in cost-efficient and sustainable ways to develop, test, and adopt new lightweight, high-performance, multifunctional, and environmentally friendly materials for high-value composites. The goal of this project was to selectively and locally tailor nanoparticle orientations in hybrid manufacturing within a given voxel (unit printing volume) via a series of mechanisms, and eventually to achieve mechanical robustness and functional properties in nanocomposites. 3D printing and dip-coating were combined on the same manufacturing platform due to their intrinsic features of layer-by-layer material processing. Nanoparticles of different dimensions and physics were used as a demonstration on a series of polymer surfaces for the general application of our manufacturing platform. Via precise control of manufacturing speed, resolutions, and other thermodynamics control, the morphology of nanoparticles was manipulated in a way that both positional and orientational orders were controlled. The unique structure features can be applicable in mechanically durable conductors and sensors. This research sheds light on the application of additive manufacturing in preparing functional materials and composites.