13 Dec Founders of COLFEED4Print in the way to discover the secrets of 3D Printing with composites
COLFEED4Print products are the results of intensive research in our exclusive technology that provide unique printable filaments with the highest dispersion of phases allowing to achieve inorganic contents up to 50 vol% into the organic matrix.
Following the interest to understand and improve the unique material we commercialize, our co-founders and members of the Group “Tailoring through Colloidal Processing” of CSIC have been granted with Synchrotron Radiation beam time in the facility ALBA. The proposal entitled “Study and monitoring of Reactive Printing process of polymer-based composite by FFF 3D printing”, led by Dr. Ana Ferrandez, have been ranged in the top grade projects and granted with beam time for measurements to be carried out next year 2022.
ALBA is a 3rd generation Synchrotron Light machine that accelerates electrons circulating around the synchrotron ring to an extremely high energy, becoming an extremely powerful source of X-rays radiation. Resulting X-rays are emitted as dozens of thin beams, each directed toward a beamline next to the accelerator. Currently ALBA has eight operational state-of-the-art beamlines, comprising soft and hard X-rays, which are devoted mainly to biosciences, condensed matter (magnetic and electronic properties, nanoscience) and materials science.
The project aimed to define and monitor “in operando” the Printing of several composite filament commercialize by COLFEED4Print analyzing by small and wide angle X-ray scattering (SAXS/WAXS) the crystallization process along the printed biocomposite. As expert of the 3D printing of composite materials, we consider that this project will provide the opportunity to establish a specific knowledge about the still unknown phenomena happening during extrusion and printing of polymer/inorganic composites. This knowledge also will be crucial in design a higher-order structure for these hybrid materials, where the inorganic particles distribution and interaction with soft polymers essentially govern the response of 3D printed scaffolds.
This action has been promoted in the frame of the CSIC´s platform for the Additive Manufacturing Development (FAB3D) where COLFEED4Print and the Group for Tailoring through Colloidal Processing are members.