| Abstract Scope |
Selective laser sintering (SLS) is a promising 3D printing technology due to its unique advantages. However, the available polymers powders has been limited since the lack of scalable production methods for high quality microparticles. This study explore a new approach for the manufacturing of high quality polymer powders for SLS, as well as a fundamentally new route to synthesis polymer-inorganic composite particles for different applications. We used thermally induced phase separation (TIPS) to synthesis polyethylene particles with diameter around 35um, and combined it with in-situ sol gel process to obtain PE-TiO2 composite particles with remained diameter. This simple process can be scaled up to meet the printing requirement, and the particles were characterized by morphology observation, flowability test and thermal analysis. Further blend with carbon black to be able to absorb optical energy from a 445nm diode laser, at the same time bring considerable conductivity to the printed parts. |