A New Approach to Carbon Nanotube Filament Nanostructuring for Additive Manufacturing

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Polymer Science
• Nanotechnology

Background:

• Additive manufacturing requires advanced filament materials with tailored properties.
• Current methods for incorporating nanoparticles like carbon nanotubes (CNTs) into polymers can be complex and solvent-dependent.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and characterize a new technique for nanostructuring acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS) filaments using single-walled carbon nanotubes (CNTs).
• To investigate the relationship between the nanostructure of ABS-CNT filaments and their mechanical and electrical properties.
• To demonstrate the feasibility of using these modified filaments in additive prototyping for functional components.

Main Methods:

• High-speed mechanical mixing of ABS copolymer granules and single-walled carbon nanotube (CNT) powder without solvents.
• Morphological analysis of filament surfaces using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and mathematical simulation.
• Characterization of dielectric and mechanical properties of the resulting ABS-CNT filaments.
• Experimental demonstration of fused filament fabrication (FFF) on plasma-chemically modified PET substrates.

Main Results:

• Supplementation of 1.5 mass.% CNT powder increased tensile strength from 36 ± 2 to 42 ± 2 MPa.
• Lower electrical resistance was correlated with greater average biharmonic amplitude and morphological spectrum localization radius in SEM images.
• Successful fabrication of functional layers using CNT-modified filaments on modified PET substrates was achieved.

Conclusions:

• The developed mechanical mixing technique effectively nanostructures ABS filaments with CNTs.
• The nanostructure significantly influences the mechanical and electrical properties of the filaments.
• This method enables the creation of functional components, such as load cell elements, via additive prototyping.