Feb 10, 2017 | By Tess

A team of Italian researchers says it could be possible to use carbon nanotubes (CNTs) to create conductive composite materials that can be 3D printed using a standard commercial 3D printer. Led by Professor Marco Sangermano at the Polytechnic University of Turin, the research team has been working with digital light processing (DLP), a 3D printing technique that works using photopolymers and light projection.

The research, which was recently published in the journal Polymer under the title “Development of 3D printable formulations containing CNT with enhanced electrical properties,” is working towards realizing 3D printable polymer nanocomposites that retain the electrical properties of carbon nanotubes. Carbon nanotubes, for those unfamiliar, are simply carbon-based, tube-shaped materials that have nanoscale diameters.

As part of the project, the researchers created a matrix material made up of two polymers, PEGDA and PEGMEMA, and added multi-walled carbon nanotubes to it. At this stage, the researchers made a number of different materials, each with a different ratio of polymers and nanotubes in it, and conducted rheological tests (in other words, tested them in their liquid form). The material mixture with the best viscosity for 3D printing was then used to create a range of objects using an unmodified DLP 3D printer.

Among the objects printed were three-millimeter cubes, submillimeter films, centimeter-scale hexagonal structures, and a circuit model. The latter was used to test the conductive and mechanical characteristics of the carbon nanotube polymer composite. Subsequent tests on the 3D printed objects demonstrated a number of things.

First, the researchers found that adding CNTs to the material mixture did result in a minor decrease in crosslinking density, which lowered the objects’ mechanical performance. Electrical tests, however, showed that by adding even 0.1 wt% CNTs to the polymer mixture enhanced the material’s conductivity by three orders of magnitude (1000 x). As they upped the concentration of CNTs, the conductivity increased even more.

While they demonstrated the conductive potential of carbon nanotube composites, the researchers are currently working on improving the mechanical properties of the material while simultaneously maintaining its electrical performance. To do this, they are testing the efficiency of using more intense light sources for their DLP 3D printer.

Carbon nanotube

We are eager to see where continued research takes the Italian scientists, and how their conductive carbon nanotube composites could advance 3D printing materials for standard 3D printers on a larger scale.

 

 

Posted in 3D Printing Materials

 

 

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Julian Struksheats wrote at 6/18/2018 4:19:32 PM:

This is DLP, not FDM.

Caligula wrote at 2/11/2017 11:58:59 PM:

This isn't groundbreaking news so far as I can tell - there are already commercially-available ESD-free filaments from manufacturers that are impregnated with MWCNTs.



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