Selective Metallization of 3D Printable Thermoplastic Polyurethanes

Assel Ryspayeva,Mohammadreza Nekouie Esfahani,Marc P Y Desmulliez,Matthew P Shuttleworth,Jose Marques-Hueso,Russell A Harris,Sadeque Reza Khan,Robert W Kay,Thomas David Arthur Jones

doi:10.1109/access.2019.2931594

Assel Ryspayeva, Mohammadreza Nekouie Esfahani + Show 7 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1109/access.2019.2931594

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Abstract

This paper presents a selective metallization method for the newly developed 3D printable thermoplastic polyurethane elastomers (TPU): FilaFlex ® , SemiFlex TM , PolyFlex TM , and NinjaFlex ® . Silver nanoparticles were fabricated in-situ by photo-reduction on the surface of TPUs and acted as catalysts for copper ion adsorption. This method demonstrates the successful fabrication of copper patterns on flexible TPU filaments. Furthermore, Polyflex TM and acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) filaments printed in the same part have been used to enable selective electroless plating directly on PolyflexTMmaterial. Electroless copper deposited onto PolyflexTMhas a sheet resistance of (139.4 ± 7.2) m Ω /□ and a copper conductivity of (1.1 ± 0.1) × 10 7 S/m that is comparable with bulk copper. Copper-plated PolyflexTMinterconnects were fabricated as a proof of concept demonstrators.

Highlights

Printed electronics using additive manufacturing (AM) has been steadily developing over the last three decades towards the manufacture of electronics components, devices and systems [1], [2]
Spectra of the thermoplastic polyurethane elastomers (TPU) materials were taken for untreated samples, samples treated with KOH and samples treated with AgNO3
The exact chemical composition of the filament is unknown, it is known that Filaflex is a polyether-polyurethane [29]

Summary

Introduction

Printed electronics using additive manufacturing (AM) has been steadily developing over the last three decades towards the manufacture of electronics components, devices and systems [1], [2]. FFF is an attractive, simple and affordable manufacturing method to produce plastic parts and structures at relatively high speed [10], it is mostly limited to a certain number of thermoplastic filaments such as polycarbonate (PC), acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) and polylactic acid (PLA) [4], [9]. TPUs are multi-phase block copolymer that consists of rigid hard segments, diisocyanate and short chain extenders, and rubbery soft segments, commonly polyester or polyether-based, which are linked by hydrogen bonds [11]. These filaments mainly consist of polyurethane and additives to aid the printing process.

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