Development of high efficiency infrared-heating-assisted micro-injection molding for fabricating micro-needle array

Abstract

Micro-injection molding (μIM) is considered to be an important method for fabricating micro-needle array which is widely researched in recent years, and mold temperature is one of the important factors that affect the mold filling quality of the polymer melt during the micro-injection molding. In this paper, an infrared heating method is adopted to raise the mold temperature rapidly for improving molding quality of micro-needle array. According to the simulation of the reflector type, which has an important effect on the efficiency of infrared heating system, an infrared heating system with high efficiency is developed and used in the developed infrared-heating-assisted μIM system. A series of verification experiments are carried out to verify the feasibility and the heating effect of the developed system. The experimental results show that the developed infrared heating system can achieve high efficiency and uniform heating of mold surface and the infrared-heating-assisted μIM process for fabricating micro-needle array can improve mold filling capability of the polymer melt and optimize the replication quality (filling height, uniformity, and shrinkage) of parts.