Results in Chemistry (Dec 2023)
Graphene reinforced 3D printed polymer nanocomposites for diverse applications
Abstract
The use of 3D printing in robotics has a lot of potential, and the technology is rapidly gaining traction in a variety of industries. Additive manufacturing has expanded into new areas thanks to the availability of a wide range of printing resources and fabrication methods. Moreover, the properties of the printed materials can be improved by incorporating nanoparticles. We used a stereo lithography equipment apparatus (SLA) to print nanocomposites and put them through various tests to determine the characteristics of a polymer based on Acrylonitrile-Butadiene-Styrene (ABS) and varying concentrations of graphene (Gr). Including S1 (pure ABS resin), S2 (ABS resin with 0.1 % Gr), S3 (ABS resin with 0.3 % Gr), and S4 (ABS resin with 0.5 % Gr), we created a total of four types of materials. Tensile, bending, compression, hardness tests, and many others, are used for mechanical testing purposes on all specimen kinds. Scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, thermal gravimetric analysis, differential scanning calorimetry, and Fourier transformation infrared spectroscopy were used for morphological study. The S2 sample (ABS resin with 0.1 % Gr) performed exceptionally well in every mechanical test. When 0.1 % Gr was added, the tensile, bending, and compressive strength were much improved, whereas in the bending test, S2 showed the greatest results, withstanding stress up to 47 N/mm2 and displaying a strain of 12 %, which contains 0.1 % graphene and There, we were able to notice that the compression stress varied from 13.3 N/mm2 to 18.3 N/mm2 whereas sample S2 (ABS resin with 0.1 % graphene) demonstrated the best compressive strength. The SEM and EDX analysis of S2 revealed remarkable properties, such as a surface structure devoid of fractures, pores, and cavities and substantial carbon stretching in almost all samples obtained by FTIR. TGA results showed that under heating conditions, all samples had essentially the same characteristics and showed essential signs of crystallization in XRD analysis.
