Eduards Krumins, Liam A Crawford, David M Rogers, Fabricio Machado, Vincenzo Taresco, Mark East, Samuel H Irving, Harriet R Fowler, Long Jiang, Nichola Starr, Christopher D J Parmenter, Kristoffer Kortsen, Valentina Cuzzucoli Crucitti, Simon V Avery, Christopher J Tuck, Steven M Howdle
Laser Sintering (LS) is a type of Additive Manufacturing (AM) exploiting laser processing of polymeric particles to produce 3D objects. Because of its ease of processability and thermo-physical properties, polyamide-12 (PA-12) represents ~95% of the polymeric materials used in LS. This constrains the functionality of the items produced, including limited available colours. Moreover, PA-12 objects tend to biofoul in wet environments. Therefore, a key challenge is to develop an inexpensive route to introduce desirable functionality to PA-12...
April 11, 2024: Nature Communications