Discipline: Technology and Engineering
Subcategory: Electrical Engineering
Session: 3
Efren Cervantes - Virginia State University
Co-Author(s): Jai Sawyer, Virginia State University,VA; Edwin Merino, Old Dominion University, VA
3D printing (aka. additive manufacturing) is becoming a more advanced manufacturing method to build 3D objects for many applications. There are different types of 3D printing technologies available in the market, including Digital Light Processing, Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM), Electronic Beam Melting, etc. To our best knowledge, however, 3D ceramic printing is relatively new and its cost is high. In addition, commercial 3D ceramic printing can only create dense ceramic structures. On the other hand, porous ceramic structures are widely used in many electrochemical devices. In the present research, a novel method of direct 3D printing of porous structures was proposed and evaluated using an SLA 3D printer (Formlab Form 2) to experimentally investigate the recipe of appropriate ceramic infiltrated resin. The homemade ceramic resin investigated is an alumina-based resin and needs to be compatible with the SLA printer. Different concentrations of alumina resin were tested for printing, and then sintered in a kiln to obtain porous ceramic structures. As of now, a 10 wt. % alumina-based ceramic resin was made by well mixing clear resin with alumina sub-micron powder. The printed objects were then sintered in a furnace to see if a self-supported porous ceramic structure is achievable. As resin is polymer-based, it is vaporized and burned out in the furnace, leaving only the ceramic material. The 10 wt. % alumina-based printed object became too much distorted. Therefore, future research involves increasing the percentage of alumina powder mixed into resin to find the appropriate recipe.
Funder Acknowledgement(s): National Science Foundation
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Jinmyun Jo, jjo@vsu.edu
Role: I helped create our own ceramic resin mixture. To do this, I calculated how much ceramic powder (Alumina) into clear resin by doing weight percentage. Also, I help create the sintering schedule for the ceramic products.