Synthesis and Application of Ceramic Feedstocks for Additive Manufacturing

This research used previous formulation technique of ceramic/polymers, selecting two Al2O3 powders (α- and θ-Al2O3), kneading of several polymers with the ceramic powder, and extruding to produce various feedstocks of wire shape, which was used for 3D additive manufacturing, also known as 3D-printing (3DP). Four tasks were completed. First, the formulation of the feedstocks was conducted using PP as the major binder, replaced with some fractions of EVA, to improve the flexibility of the wires and reduce the chance of the fracture of the wire during 3D printing. The compatibility of PP and EVA was also investigated by grafting maleic acid (MA) on PP chain to reduce polarity difference between PP and EVA. The third task was to study the dispersion condition of the alumina powder in the feedstocks, and quantitatively investigated the influence by kneading sequences, solid content, and other processing parameters. After optimizing the processing conditions, the alumina parts could be densified to a density better than 97% theoretical density (T.D.). Finally, θ-Al2O3 feedstock was used to produce porous catalyst support. Ni-CeO2 nano-particles were evenly coated on the Al2O3 support, used to reform syngas. The CH4 in the syngas, which was gasified from biomass, was reformed to a content less than 1.0 vol% in optimized conditions.