(45a) On Demand Ceramic Open Cell For Intensified Reaction By High Precision Additive Manufacturing

By confining chemical reaction in a network of miniaturized structures in configurations measured in millimeters and embedded with micrometer-sized pores or channels, microarchitectured reactors provide more efficient mass and heat transfer because of their large specific surface areas, thereby resulting in a higher yield of reaction. A number of manufacturing technologies for chemically intensified reactors, including hot embossing, laser ablation, micromachining, and chemical etching, are currently commercially used. These techniques are generally constrained in design to two-dimensional planar channel networks, with more intricate designs leading to significant increases in cost of assembly, manufacturing complexity and production time. Additive manufacturing is emerging as a promising fabrication method because it allows precise control over the topology, geometry, and composition of the designed functional reactors.

In this invited talk, we introduce our research effort on additive manufacturing of cellular ceramic open cells with high-quality, complex architecture at critical dimension down to a few micrometers. This presentation highlights the background and engineering capabilities of high-resolution optical projection- based approach to additively produce complex polymer and ceramic parts on demand. We will also discuss our current research of ceramic materialization via chemical synthesis using printed polymeric cellular microstructures. Our proposed method overcomes the limitation of traditional ceramic manufacturing such as long lead time of tooling and high capital cost. By utilizing AM, catalytic converters far more geometrically complex than the traditional, extruded monolith structures can be manufactured. Therefore, additive manufacturing provides benefits outlined thus far for the catalytic converter. Using case studies of catalytic converter and reactors, we will discuss the outstanding challenges and fundamental issues that need to be addressed to bring high precision ceramics for intensified reaction at scale.