A facile one step route that introduces functionality to polymer powders for laser sintering.

ABSTRACT: Laser Sintering (LS) is a type of Additive Manufacturing (AM) exploiting laser processing of polymeric particles to produce 3D objects. Because of its ease of processability and thermo-physical properties, polyamide-12 (PA-12) represents ~95% of the polymeric materials used in LS. This constrains the functionality of the items produced, including limited available colours. Moreover, PA-12 objects tend to biofoul in wet environments. Therefore, a key challenge is to develop an inexpensive route to introduce desirable functionality to PA-12. We report a facile, clean, and scalable approach to modification of PA-12, exploiting supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO₂) and free radical polymerizations to yield functionalised PA-12 materials. These can be easily printed using commercial a

SUBMITTER: Krumins E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11009337 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature