IN-SITU SYNTHESIS OF 3D-PRINTED MAGNETIC NANOPARTICLES EMBEDDED PHOTOPOLYMERS

Abstract

In order to enhance magnetic and thermal properties of polymeric structures in 3D (three-dimensional) form, stereolithography technique is an alternative way to in-situ synthesize magnetic nanoparticles such as iron, cobalt and nickel in photocurable resin during laser photopolymerization for magnetic micromachines. By using different types of magnetic nanoparticles in the resin, the formed structure exhibits different mechanical, thermal and magnetic behaviors.In this study, magnetic nanoparticles were synthesized by laser irradiation to investigate the effects of the magnetic nanoparticles in 3D structure. Under constant metal salt amount and forming layer thickness, morphological, characterization, mechanical, thermal and magnetic properties were conducted by scanning electron microscope (SEM), transmission electron microscope (TEM), tensile test, thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM), respectively. As a result, it observed that the magnetic properties of iron-based polymeric structures show higher saturation magnetization (0.0145 emu/gr) while thermal stability remains low for other magnetic embedded polymer samples. In the presence of magnetic nanoparticles, its mechanical strength decreased from 14 MPa to 5 MPa for all experiments against pure 3D resin, as well as it leads to more fragile structures. Finally, for each sample, singular magnetic nanoparticles were formed in the polymer matrix and verified that nanoparticles are completely reduced.