3D PRINTING OF ELASTOMERS AND APPLICATIONS

Abstract

The demand for the soft functional polymers is very high in our nowadays soft electronics applications. These applications are like flexible touch screens, electronic skins, and energy storage, just to name few. To manufacture these functional polymers by traditional ways to fit in these applications, casting and laser cutting are employed which may increase the waste material and leads to increase the total cost and time. By introducing additive manufacturing for fabrication of such functional polymers, the cost, time and functionality can be controlled. Here, functional elastomers have been developed and manufactured by 3D printing. Dielectric elastomers with ultra-high permittivity have been formulated, printed and characterised. Also, conducting elastomer with very low hysteresis and self healing abilities have been demonstrated. Some applications have been demonstrated to show the power of 3D printing in the field of soft elastomers manufacturing.