Facilitating the additive manufacture of high-performance polymers through polymer blending: A review

Abstract

Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF, a.k.a. fused deposition modeling, FDM) is presently the most widespread material extrusion (MEX) additive manufacturing technique owing to its flexibility and robustness. Nonetheless, it remains underutilized in load-bearing applications, as often seen in aerospace, automotive and biomedical industries. This is largely due to the processing challenges associated with high performance polymers (HPPs) like poly-ether-ether-ketone (PEEK) or polyetherimide (PEI). Compared with commercial-grade plastics such as polylactic acid (PLA), parts produced with HPPs have outstanding mechanical properties and thermal stability. However, HPPs have bulkier chemical structures and stronger intermolecular forces than common FFF feedstock materials, and this results in much higher printing temperatures and greater melt viscosities. The demanding processing requirements of HPPs have thus impaired their adoption within FFF. Polymer blending, which consists in properly mixing HPPs with other thermoplastics, makes it possible to alleviate these printing issues, while also providing additional advantages such as improved tensile strength and reduced friction. Further to this, manipulating the crystallisation processes of HPPs mitigates distortion or warping upon printing. This review explores some emerging trends in the field of HPP blends and how they address the challenges of excessive melt viscosity, polymer crystallization, moisture uptake, and part shrinkage in 3D printing. Also, the various structural/mechanical/chemical enhancements that are afforded to FFF parts through HPP blending are critically analysed based on recent examples from the literature. Such insights will not only aid researchers in this field, but also facilitate the development of novel, 3D printable HPP blends.