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., …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