3-D printing superstrong ceramics

Abstract

Ceramics like your humble coffee mug are stiff, lightweight, and heat resistant. But they’re also brittle. To overcome this weakness, researchers have now used 3-D printing to create ceramics that are both strong and ductile (Matter 2019, DOI: 10.1016/j.matt.2019.09.009). Such materials could eventually be used in engineering applications, such as in airplane engine components. Traditional methods for making ceramic objects use pressure and heat to fuse inorganic powders together, but these processes tend to create tiny pores and cracks that quickly turn into larger breaks when the material is stressed. Lorenzo Valdevit at the University of California, Irvine, says 3-D printing offers a way to build ceramics without those fatal flaws. To make the new ceramics, he and his team mixed (mercaptopropyl)methylsiloxane and vinylmethoxysiloxane with a phosphine oxide reagent. Exposed to pulses of infrared laser light, this reagent forms a radical that triggers the siloxanes to polymerize, creating a solid.