Surface functionalization of 3D-printed plastics via initiated chemical vapor deposition.

Christine Cheng,Malancha Gupta

doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.162

Abstract

3D printing is a useful fabrication technique because it offers design flexibility and rapid prototyping. The ability to functionalize the surfaces of 3D-printed objects allows the bulk properties, such as material strength or printability, to be chosen separately from surface properties, which is critical to expanding the breadth of 3D printing applications. In this work, we studied the ability of the initiated chemical vapor deposition (iCVD) process to coat 3D-printed shapes composed of poly(lactic acid) and acrylonitrile butadiene styrene. The thermally insulating properties of 3D-printed plastics pose a challenge to the iCVD process due to large thermal gradients along the structures during processing. In this study, processing parameters such as the substrate temperature and the filament temperature were systematically varied to understand how these parameters affect the uniformity of the coatings along the 3D-printed objects. The 3D-printed objects were coated with both hydrophobic and hydrophilic polymers. Contact angle goniometry and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy were used to characterize the functionalized surfaces. Our results can enable the use of iCVD to functionalize 3D-printed materials for a range of applications such as tissue scaffolds and microfluidics.

Highlights

Three-dimensional printing (3DP) is a useful fabrication technique that offers rapid and low-cost prototyping, high levels of design complexity, and resolution on the micron scale [1,2]
We investigated the deposition of poly(1H,1H,2H,2H-perfluorodecyl acrylate) (PPFDA) [23] and poly((2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate)-co-(ethylene glycol diacrylate)) (P(HEMA-co-EGDA)) [30] onto 3D objects of a variety of shapes and sizes to study the capabilities and limitations of the initiated chemical vapor deposition (iCVD) process
To systematically study the uniformity of the iCVD coatings, PPFDA was deposited onto 3D-printed poly(lactic acid) (PLA) lattices of 7.5 mm in height

Summary

Introduction

Three-dimensional printing (3DP) is a useful fabrication technique that offers rapid and low-cost prototyping, high levels of design complexity, and resolution on the micron scale [1,2]. To systematically study the uniformity of the iCVD coatings, PPFDA was deposited onto 3D-printed PLA lattices of 7.5 mm in height. To measure the change in hydrophobicity of the 7.5 mm PLA lattice after the deposition of PPFDA, contact angle changes were monitored (Figure 2a).

Results

Conclusion