New four-year project to explore new polymeric materials for additive manufacturing.
Netherlands-based Brightlands Materials Center is teaming with partners DSM, Xilloc Medical, Eindhoven University of Technology, Maastricht University and NWO on a four-year project to explore new polymeric materials for additive manufacturing (AM).
In response to the growing demand for novel materials that enable better, faster and more robust AM processes, the new materials are aimed to bring both new and improved properties based on recently developed concepts of dynamic and reversible chemistry.
A new class of dynamic polymers such as vitrimers offer highly unusual properties which Brightlands believes could potentially lead to new AM applications. The most well-known are self-healing properties, which enable the materials to repair themselves after damage takes place.
The project will cover three key research areas. The first is selective laser sintering and the project aims to improve the inefficient merging process with innovative materials that reversibly reduce their viscosity to flow more easily and enable better bond formation.
The second area is 4D printing, an emerging technology based on dynamic materials that respond to stimuli to change properties such as shape. The project will combine techniques such as 3D inkjet printing and stereolithography with responsive liquid crystalline polymer networks which react to a variety of external stimuli in a reversible manner. New approaches are proposed to explore nature‐like hierarchal structures.
The final research focus will be biofabrication, specifically looking at the use of AM in tissue engineering. The research will address the current limitations in well‐defined and customisable synthetic systems that allow for precise control over material properties and the bioactivation of the material. The reversible and mechanically instructive materials developed in this project will explore the ability to influence stem‐cell behaviour and elevate biofabrication.
This research has received funding from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) in the framework of the Fund New Chemical Innovations and from the Ministry of Economic Affairs in the framework of the TKI allowance.
