Scaling up colloidal surface additivation of polymer powders for laser powder bed fusion

摘要

Nanoadditivation of polymer materials has high potential to meet the needs of material modification for laser powder bed fusion (PBF-LB/P), e.g. by tuning optical or mechanical properties. Colloidal additivation of polymer powders has proven to avoid aggregation of nanofillers on the polymer surface during additivation. In our study, we demonstrate kg-scale, continuous colloidal surface additivation of polymer powders to generate sufficient amounts for PBF-LB/P process development and manufacturing of test specimens. Furthermore, colloidal additivation achieves a high surface coverage even at low wt% and allows PBF-LB/P with CO_2 and diode lasers to form parts preserving the superior nanoparticle dispersion within TPU and PA12.