The ability to produce carbon materials with high geometry complexity is essential for many applications such as thermal management and electromagnetic interference shielding. While additive manufacturing-based (AM-based) methods can provide direct access for on-demand control over the macroscopic shape and size with very limited waste generation, previous AM methods for manufacturing carbons require either expensive polymer precursors that are not commercially available or pre-synthesized carbon fibers or other additives (e.g. graphene oxides) as the continuous phase. There is a strong need for the development of a simple and scalable technology to enable AM of polymer precursors and their derived carbon materials. This talk will present an approach to fabricate carbon materials using fused deposition modeling-based 3D printing methods and low-cost polymers. We will discuss the dimensional accuracy of the objects from 3D printing and how the thermal treatment, including a high temperature carbonization step, influence their resulting morphologies. To generalize our method, the impact of precursor selection and processing conditions on resulting carbon materials will be revealed. Additionally, we will discuss about the physical properties of these derived carbons, including porosity, nanoscale structures, mechanical performance as well as their potential use for Joule-heating applications.

Additive manufacturing of carbon materials using commodity plastics

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