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

Eduards Krumins; Liam A Crawford; David M Rogers; Fabricio Machado; Vincenzo Taresco; Mark East; Samuel H Irving; Harriet R Fowler; Long Jiang; Nichola Starr; Christopher D J Parmenter; Kristoffer Kortsen; Valentina Cuzzucoli Crucitti; Simon V Avery; Christopher J Tuck; Steven M Howdle

doi:10.1038/s41467-024-47376-4

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

Nat Commun. 2024 Apr 11;15(1):3137. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-47376-4.

Authors

Eduards Krumins¹, Liam A Crawford², David M Rogers¹, Fabricio Machado^{1

3}, Vincenzo Taresco¹, Mark East⁴, Samuel H Irving¹, Harriet R Fowler¹, Long Jiang⁵, Nichola Starr⁵, Christopher D J Parmenter⁶, Kristoffer Kortsen¹, Valentina Cuzzucoli Crucitti⁴, Simon V Avery², Christopher J Tuck⁴, Steven M Howdle⁷

Affiliations

¹ School of Chemistry, University of Nottingham, University Park Nottingham, NG7 2RD, Nottingham, UK.
² Life Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Nottingham, University Park Nottingham, NG7 2RD, Nottingham, UK.
³ Institute of Chemistry, University of Brasília, Campus Universitário Darcy Ribeiro, Brasília, DF, 70910-900, Brazil.
⁴ Centre of Additive Manufacturing, Faculty of Engineering, University of Nottingham, 522 Derby Rd, Lenton, Nottingham, NG7 2GX, UK.
⁵ School of Pharmacy, University of Nottingham, University Park Nottingham, Nottingham, NG7 2RD, UK.
⁶ Nottingham Nanoscale and Microscale Research Centre, University Park, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, NG7 2RD, UK.
⁷ School of Chemistry, University of Nottingham, University Park Nottingham, NG7 2RD, Nottingham, UK. steve.howdle@nottingham.ac.uk.

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 apparatus. We demonstrate the potential by creating coloured PA-12 materials and show that the same approach can be utilized to create anti-biofouling objects. Our approach to functionalise materials could open significant new applications for AM.