Moleculair design of high-end materials for 3D printing
For the professionalizing and promotion of 3D printing of polymer materials, this proposed research focusses on the optimization of polymer materials on a molecular level tailored to the use in existing and still to be developed hardware.
Additive manufacturing, often referred to as 3D printing, is a rapid developing technology that offers extraordinary dimensional flexibility and control in the manufacturing of complex geometries. Exquisite examples are found in metals, like patient-specific implants and even in printing of biological tissue. However, additive manufacturing with/using polymers serves often solely rapid prototyping. Failing of layered “welds” prevents a macroscopic contribution of intrinsic material properties under load. Polymers are attractive due to their ‘normally’ relatively easy processability, low density and tuneable properties, all available at a low cost. The cause is that the identity and properties of the materials are correlated to the structural organisation of the atomic building blocks, whether or not connected. In metals the atoms pool their electrons in a common sea, but upon cooling from the melt (the state of matter that allows changing macroscopic geometry), the atoms organize into a unified product relatively easy.
Also in the case of biological tissue the end product is ‘alive’ and yields macroscopically unified product performance. In polymers however, diffusion into a unified product demands significant timescales since the atomic building blocks are connected to form long molecules. To limit this time somewhat or even to ‘gain’ some extra time, it is necessary that material developers optimize polymer materials molecularly to the various 3D print processes. Just like it has been done in the past for extrusion, injection moulding, fibre spinning etc.
The development of 3D printing to a fully appreciated production technology requires hardware and material developments, which usually go hand in hand. The developments in the field of printing technology (the ‘hardware’), are ahead of schedule, whilst the necessary material development is lagging behind. For the professionalizing and promotion of 3D printing of polymer materials, this proposed research focusses on the optimization of polymer materials on a molecular level tailored to the use in existing and still to be developed hardware.