3D reactive inkjet printing of bisphenol A-polycarbonate

Qian, Qifeng; Kamps, Jan Henk; Price, Brian; Gu, Hao; Wildman, Ricky; Hague, Richard; Begines, Belen; Tuck, Chris

Abstract

Additive Manufacturing (AM) techniques have gained extensive attention recently as they are able to directly produce 3D parts utilising a layer-by-layer manner. Inkjet printing is one such technique which can produce micron-scale features but is generally constrained to liquid viscosities of less than 30 mPa·s, therefore available materials are limited. A 3D reactive inkjet printing (3DRIJP) approach to deposit low viscosity monomers and polymerise in-situ to form polymer parts is emerging. In this work, a 3DRIJP approach has been developed to fabricate bisphenol A-polycarbonate (BPA-PC) for the first time by using a low viscosity reactive ink containing monomers, catalyst and solvent. A set of processing parameters were explored and optimised including temperature of droplet formation, substrate temperature and droplet spacing to print films. With a thermal post-curing process, BPA-PC was formed successfully with a molecular weight comparable to those which were manufactured by the conventional melt transesterification process. The thermal properties were evaluated suggesting good thermal resistance characteristics. Finally, a 3D ziggurat structure was printed to demonstrate the capability to fabricate BPA-PC by an AM method, thus broadened the library of AM materials to include engineering grade polymers via 3DRJIP. This approach was innovative in both the BPA-PC material formulation and the 3DRIJP process development from traditional inkjet printing methods, where a single printable formulation of monomers for thermoplastic optical-clear BPA-PC was able to be printed using one printhead to form 3D structures.

Citation

Qian, Q., Kamps, J. H., Price, B., Gu, H., Wildman, R., Hague, R., Begines, B., & Tuck, C. (2022). 3D reactive inkjet printing of bisphenol A-polycarbonate. Additive Manufacturing, 54, Article 102745. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addma.2022.102745

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Mar 8, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Mar 17, 2022
• Publication Date: Jun 1, 2022
• Deposit Date: Mar 18, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 18, 2022
• Journal: Additive Manufacturing
• Print ISSN: 2214-7810
• Electronic ISSN: 2214-8604
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 54
• Article Number: 102745
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addma.2022.102745
• Keywords: Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering; Engineering (miscellaneous); General Materials Science; Biomedical Engineering
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/7610915
• Publisher URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221486042200149X