Manufacturing of Bromelain based PVA support structure for 3D printing

Abstract

There has been a critical need for the development of cost effective Poly-vinyl Alcohol based wire to be used as support material filament for fused deposition modelling (FDM) machines. But hitherto, very little work has been reported for the development of support material for acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) and Poly Lactic Acid (PLA) based wire which is presently used in most FDM machines. The present research work is focused on development of Poly-vinyl Alcohol wire which can be employed in support structures for modelling intricate shapes, production of bandages or wipes for inflammation wounds without changing any hardware or software of the machine. For the present study, polyvinyl alcohol is tailored with Bromelain (Pineapple enzyme) which is used as an additive in this process and was analyzed in different stoichiometric ratios. Glycerine was employed as plasticizer to improve its flexibility and thus enabling it to be extruded. The tests carried out on the tailored feed stocks are namely tensile strength test, FTIR analysis, and observation under optical microscopy and SEM for studying its fibrous nature. Therefore, the tailored feedstock was tested and analyzed to understand the variation in the properties of the feedstock with the commercially produced filaments. Thus we were successfully able to manufacture Bromelain based PVA feedstock which satisfies the conditions of a filament produced in conventional methods. The work represents a major development in reducing the cost and the time in dissolving the support structure.