Production of Filter Material from Polypropylene/Copolyamide Blend by Material Extrusion-Based Additive Manufacturing: Role of Production Conditions and ZrO2 Nanoparticles

• Published in: 3D printing and additive manufacturing 2021-08, Vol.8 (4), p.253-262
• Main Authors: Beloshenko, Victor, Chishko, Vyacheslav, Plavan, Viktoria, Rezanova, Natalia, Savchenko, Bogdan, Sova, Nadiya, Vozniak, Iurii
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Original
• ISSN: 2329-7662; 2329-7670
• DOI: 10.1089/3dp.2020.0195

The effect of technological conditions of the process and zirconia (ZrO 2 ) nanoparticles on the properties of fine-fibrous filter materials (FMs) obtained by matrix polymer extraction from a microfibrillar composite formed using the material extrusion-based additive manufacturing method from a polypropylene (PP)/copolyamide blend is studied. Different processing schemes were used for obtaining filaments for material extrusion: scheme I—the use of a single-screw extruder at the stage of compounding; scheme II—the use of a single-screw extruder at the stage of compounding and orientational stretching in the course of strand formation; scheme III—the use of a twin-screw extruder at the stage of compounding, scheme IV—the addition of ZrO 2 nanoparticles and use of a twin-screw extruder. It has been shown the possibility of reducing the diameters of the formed in situ PP microfibrils by using the twin-screw extruder, as well as additional orientation drawing. The introduction into the melt of ZrO 2 nanoparticles provides further improvement of the microstructure—the average diameter of the microfibrils is reduced by 1.4 times compared with the initial blend. Developed FMs are characterized by high efficiency of air purification from solid particles with a size of 0.3 μm. At the same time, the use of nanoadditives is the most effective—a two-layer FM with nanoparticles provides cleaning efficiency at the level of four- to six-layer materials without filler.