3D Printing onto Textiles: A Systematic Analysis of the Adhesion Studies

The article reviews the literature focused on investigating the adhesion strength between the 3D-printed polymers and the textile substrates, and its dependence on different factors related to materials, printing parameters, and fabrics type and structure. 3D printing (3DP) onto textiles is a domain in expansion as it allows developing products with new functionalities by gathering the advantages of design freedom, tailor-fit, comfort, variety, and mass customization provided by both the textiles and the additive manufacturing technology. In this context, it becomes important to document and understand how the adherence of different 3D-printed molten polymer to diverse textiles substrates can be improved for obtaining products more resistant to specific conditions, such as washing, wear, or ironing. Following a systematic search of electronic databases, 28 articles were selected for the full-text read and data extraction. The summarized information was grouped per 3DP material and analyzed factors, and then discussed in terms of variables influencing the adherence, including pretreatments and post-treatments applied to fabrics or 3D-printed onto fabrics specimens and objects. A case study of a customized polylactic acid-cotton-elastane wrist-hand orthosis is also presented to exemplify the modality in which the information synthetized in this review can be used in the development process of a new product.