Review
Macromolecular
Materials and Engineering
wileyonlinelibrary.com (1 of 13) 1600553 © 2017 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim DOI: 10.1002/mame.201600553
sheet lamination, and paste extrusion, among others. A
recent study
[5]
showed that worldwide spending on 3D
printers would continuously increase in the next two years
(Figure 1A). Furthermore, an estimated annual compound
growth rate of 27% is expected from the $11 billion AM
industry in 2015, expanding it to $26.7 billion by 2019.
[6]
In contrast to traditional subtractive manufac-
turing—the process of removing materials from a bulk
monolith to form a part (e.g., through cutting, grinding,
machining, etc.)—AM can create more complex geom-
etries and multicompositions. This capability changed
the way people conceptualized ideas, allowing com-
panies to save resources and product development
time. Prototyping can now be accomplished within a
few hours or days—a drastic improvement for a pro-
cess that normally takes months using traditional
methods of manufacturing. Hence, the process came to
be known as “rapid prototyping.” But the demand for
actual parts is turning this proposition towards “rapid
manufacturing.” Industries are now capable of creating
functional parts for end-use applications such as GE
Aviation’s 3D printed fuel nozzles
[8]
and Siemens AG’s
Additive manufacturing (AM) is still underutilized as an industrial process, but is quickly
gaining momentum with the development of innovative techniques and materials for various
applications. In particular, stereolithography (SLA) is now shifting from rapid prototyping to
rapid manufacturing, but is facing challenges in parts per-
formance and printing speed, among others. This review dis-
cusses the application of SLA for polymer nanocomposites
fabrication to show the technology’s potential in increasing
the applicability of current SLA-printed parts. Photopoly-
merization chemistry, nanocomposite preparation, and appli-
cations in various industries are also explained to provide a
comprehensive picture of the current and future capabilities
of the technique and materials involved.
3D Printing of Polymer Nanocomposites via
Stereolithography
Jill Z. Manapat, Qiyi Chen, Piaoran Ye, Rigoberto C. Advincula*
Prof. J. Z. Manapat, Q. Chen, P. Ye, Prof. R. C. Advincula
Department of Macromolecular Science and Engineering
Case Western Reserve University
OH 44106, USA
E-mail: rca41@case.edu
Prof. J. Z. Manapat
Department of Mining
Metallurgical, and Materials Engineering
University of the Philippines
Diliman 1101, Philippines
1. Introduction
Additive manufacturing, commonly referred to as 3D
printing, is one of the most disruptive technologies of our
time. AM involves “adding and joining” one layer of mate-
rial on top of another to form a designed object or fabri-
cated part.
[1]
AM using polymer materials (instead of ink)
started in the 1980s with SLA,
[2]
fused deposition modeling
(FDM),
[3]
and selective laser sintering
[4]
techniques. Since
then, many variations in 3D printing technology have been
developed such as binder jetting, digital light processing,
Macromol. Mater. Eng. 2017, DOI: 10.1002/mame.201600553