About this Abstract |
| Meeting |
2026 TMS Annual Meeting & Exhibition
|
| Symposium
|
Printed Electronics and Additive Manufacturing of Advanced Functional Materials and Devices—From Processing Concepts to Applications
|
| Presentation Title |
PDMS 3D AJP: Mechanisms, Microarchitectures and Applications |
| Author(s) |
Swastik Kushagr, Chunshan Hu, Aaditya Nanda Kumar, Bin Yuan, Rahul Panat |
| On-Site Speaker (Planned) |
Swastik Kushagr |
| Abstract Scope |
Soft compliant silicone polymers like Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) are used in soft robotics and microfluidic systems due to their flexibility, biocompatibility, and chemical stability. However, their poor printability and curing behavior have limited scalable fabrication of 3D freestanding microstructures. Here, we introduce a solvent-diluted PDMS ink with long shelf-life, enabling aerosol jet printing (AJP) of minimally constrained 3D compliant structures without auxiliary supports. The ink allows one-step fabrication via on-the-spot thermal curing. Modeling-guided experimentation reveals the interplay of solvent evaporation and curing behavior. The method is generalized to other polymers including Ecoflex, PEDOT:PSS, SU-8, and polyimide. We demonstrate applications: magnetic PDMS micropillars formed by incorporating SPIONs into the ink for actuation, leak-proof freestanding PDMS microchannels for 3D microfluidics, and PDMS microlattices that withstand over 10,000 compression cycles at 50% strain. These results establish a robust and scalable platform for fabricating 3D polymer microarchitectures for a wide range of emerging applications. |
| Proceedings Inclusion? |
Planned: |
| Keywords |
Additive Manufacturing, Polymers, Composites |