(378a) Designing Polymer Nanocomposites for Functional Additive Manufacturing
AIChE Annual Meeting
2023
2023 AIChE Annual Meeting
Topical Conference: Next-Gen Manufacturing
Polymers in Additive Manufacturing I
Tuesday, November 7, 2023 - 12:30pm to 1:00pm
In the first part, I will discuss our recent progress in designing thermoplastic elastomers (TPEs) and their blends for additive manufacturing of soft, stretchable, and biocompatible structures. Polyisobutylene (PIB)-based TPEs including poly(styrene-b-isobutylene-b-styrene) (SIBS) copolymers and PIB-based polyurethanes have been successfully used for fused filament fabrication (FFF) 3D printing. The microphase-separated structure of TPEs can be precisely tuned by adjusting the hard to soft block ratio and blending with rigid homopolymers. Butyl rubber and its nanocomposites have been successfully 3D printed with solvent-assisted direct ink writing (DIW) by adjusting the rheological, mechanical, and electrical properties with nanoclay and graphene. Soft and stretchable strain sensors based on the 3D printed structures were also demonstrated.
In the second part, I will discuss our recent work in designing polymer composite particles for selective laser sintering (SLS) 3D printing. SLS has several unique advantages including the ability to fabricate complex geometries without support structures, highly isotropic properties of the printed parts, batch production of multiple parts in one printing. However, currently there are very limited types of polymer powders available for SLS, with over 95% being polyamide. To address this limitation, we have developed a hybrid approach for the scalable synthesis of polyolefin composite particles, which exhibit narrow size distribution, regular shape, and excellent SLS 3D printability. The processing-structure-property relationship of the polymer composite powders and 3D printed parts was also systematically elucidated.
Key references:
Shen, N.; Duan, L.; Yang, M.; Liu, S.; Xu, W. Solvent-Assisted 3D Printing of Butyl Rubber and Its Hybrid Materials. MRS Commun. 2022, 12, 597â602.
Shen, N.; Bu, J.; Prevot, M. E.; Hegmann, T.; Kennedy, J. P.; Xu, W. Macromolecular Engineering and Additive Manufacturing of Polyisobutylene-Based Thermoplastic Elastomers. II. The Poly(styrene-b-isobutylene-b-styrene)/Poly(phenylene oxide) System. Macromol. Rapid Commun. 2022, 2200109.
Shen, N.; Liu, S.; Kasbe, P. S.; Khabaz, F.; Kennedy, J. P.; Xu, W. Macromolecular Engineering and Additive Manufacturing of Poly(styrene-b-isobutylene-b-styrene) (SIBS). ACS Appl. Polym. Mater. 2021, 3, 4554â4562.
Liu, S.; Kasbe, P. S.; Yang, M.; Shen, N.; Duan, L.; Mao, Y.; Xu, W. Intimately Bonded 2D Materials and Responsive Polymer Brushes for Adaptive Nanocomposites. Polymer 2020, 210, 123033.