1 Topic by smithwoosley

  • smithwoosley
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Topic: Input Material

Hey printers!  My name is Smith, I'm a PhD nanoengineering student working on incorporating nanomaterials into 3D printing.  I'm interested in using the Filastruder to create nanoparticle composite filaments.  However, I see in the "How it works" section that the hopper is to be filled with pellets.  Would a liquid slurry work as well?  I'd be melting down the pellets and dispersing nanomaterials prior to extrusion, so I'd need to be able to use a liquid slurry as an input material.  Anyone have thoughts on the viability of this?  Any help is appreciated.  Thanks!

2 Reply by jason_

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Re: Input Material

I would think a liquid slurry would be very difficult to work with.  Are you using ABS as a base layer?  If so keep in mind the material has to flow easily into the barrel (we sometimes have problems with this using pellets which would flow a lot easier than melted plastic)...

Another alternative is to heat the plastic to a slurry put your nanoparticles in it.  Let it dry and then re pelletize it before using it with the struder

3 Reply by smithwoosley

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Re: Input Material

I'll most likely be using ABS, though I'd like to play around with PLA and other plastics as well.

That's a good idea about drying and returning to pellets.  Do the pellets have to be relatively uniform to work in the Filastruder?

4 Reply by elmoret

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Re: Input Material

"liquid slurry" won't work. There's two ways to make a polymer into a liquid:

1.) Solvent
2.) Heat

The first won't work because practically all hydrocarbon solvents are very flammable, and passing that through a 200C hot end is real bad news. The second won't work because you'd need a way to keep it hot the whole time, and force it down the feed tube (you'd need to form a metal hopper for this. Plus - how are you going to mix the nano particles in once you've melted the pellets? Sounds like a job for... an extruder! That brings me to my point:

The pros mix raw material with the additive, extrude, pelletize, and re-extrude. You could certainly do this, and it's what I'd recommend. Depending on how well your nano material mixes, you may only need to pelletize once. Such a beast does exist already at the home-extrusion scale:

http://www.soliforum.com/topic/5159/fil … elletizer/

The Filastruder does feed powder fine, if you can get your powder in polymer form and your nano particles in powder form as well.

The only concern you need to have is whether your nano particles will wear brass nozzles (the Filastruder and 99% of printers use brass nozzles). If so, you just have to account for that and replace them periodically. (Alumina does this)

Filastruder - the robust, inexpensive filament extruder
E3Dv6 All Metal Hotend - the premier 3D printing hotend

5 Reply by smithwoosley (edited by smithwoosley 2014-03-13 16:38:38)

  • smithwoosley
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Re: Input Material

Thanks for that info.  I like the powder feeding idea, it would definitely make particle dispersion an easier task.

Anyone have more info on powder extrusion, or thoughts on how particle/polymer powder mixing and extrusion would work?

6 Reply by Nydosa

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Re: Input Material

We're looking at some custom extrusions with a filler that's around a particle size of 5 micron. I'd be interested if you tried any extrusions yourself yet, or if you're going to do so in the future. Feel free to PM me.