When Lipps Inc. invited listeners to Funkytown, it’s unlikely that the ’80s disco group had in thoughts carbon nanotubes – not least as a result of it will take till 1991 for researcher Sumio Iijima to determine the fabric. However for the group at Mechnano, an Arizona-based additive manufacturing (AM) supplies start-up, carbon nanotubes are a basic a part of their day by day reprise, and their lab on the Arizona State College Polytechnic campus, recognized affectionately as Funkytown, is the place D’Func was born.
“There are a number of levels in our course of of manufacturing carbon nanotube composites – one among them is functionalisation, however let’s be actual – saying ‘functionalisation’ over and over can get previous quick!” Olga Ivanova, aka Dr.O, Director of Functions & Expertise at Mechnano, shared with TCT. “So as an alternative of claiming ‘functionalised carbon nanotubes’, we simply began to name them ‘funky flakes’ as a result of they’re like flakes in a dry kind. That is type of how D’Func got here to be.”
D’Func – discrete, dispersed, and functionalised carbon nanotubes – is the identify given to Mechnano’s proprietary expertise that addresses the challenges related to utilising carbon nanotubes. This expertise has been efficiently utilized to polymers for additive manufacturing, in flip, opening up prospects for printed elements with higher mechanical, electrical, and thermal properties.
“Carbon nanotubes provide an enormous array of advantages that make them beneficial in numerous industries,” Ivanova defined. “They’re extremely robust, which is ideal for industries like aerospace, electronics, healthcare, protection – you identify it.”
Carbon nanotubes – or CNTs – are cylindrical constructions of pure carbon. With a wall thickness of only a single atom, they’re 10,000 instances smaller than a human hair, 100 instances stronger than metal, and possess 1,000 instances the present capability of copper. But, it’s been greater than three a long time since that preliminary discovery, and what was regarded as the subsequent revolution in supplies science hasn’t fairly lived as much as its potential, at the least not for AM.
In keeping with Olga, “Carbon nanotubes have a number of spectacular attributes. With that mentioned, they have a tendency to clump collectively in the course of the manufacturing course of and after they’re all clumped up, they can not successfully share their distinctive properties with the fabric they’re combined in.”
This problem is the idea of Mechnano’s innovation with D’Func. It has been engineered to beat the pure tendency for carbon nanotubes to agglomerate. Mechnano’s group of fabric scientists have utilized completely different chemistries to the sidewalls of CNTs to make sure they continue to be steady and dispersed inside a fabric matrix, in the end delivering higher efficiency and the potential so as to add new properties, similar to conductivity.
“It is not simply an innovation by bettering the efficiency but in addition making a constructive affect within the tech trade,” Ivanova mentioned.
Mechnano was the primary firm in AM to manufacture elements with CNTs utilizing materials jetting and vat photopolymerization techniques. The corporate got here out of stealth in 2021 with a product that provided improved affect, tensile efficiency, and ESD (Electrostatic discharge) properties. Its discrete tubes may be tailor-made to particular necessities and processes, and Mechnano is now delivering ESD-safe additive supplies by means of its proprietary masterbatches and readyto-use resins, powders and pellets. When requested about Mechnano’s daring ambitions to ‘change the world’ with its ESD supplies, Ivanova, who oversees Mechnano’s advertising however has spoken candidly in regards to the pitfalls of an overhyped AM trade, is eager to place these ambitions into context.
“ESD-safe merchandise are important for protecting digital gadgets protected from static electrical energy harm,” she defined. “They’re additionally paramount in decreasing the danger of fires and explosions in environments which can be liable to that and clearly defending residing organisms. So, if you concentrate on it, sure, we’re altering the world, by defending the world.”
Mechnano’s supplies have attracted customers from a variety of industries, notably aerospace and electronics, the place a mess of functions face elevated dangers of harm from electrostatic discharge and demand progressive options to safeguard digital elements inside intricate equipment and techniques.
“Each innovation is available in waves,” Ivanova observes, suggesting that scalability, value and, most significantly, constant high quality are amongst the largest hurdles affecting additional adoption of CNT supplies. Mechnano has prolonged an open invitation to additive OEMs and customers to collaborate on including D’Func to their capabilities. Final yr, for instance, the corporate labored with Tethon3D to develop a brand new high-temperature ESD resin appropriate for the fabrication of customized elements that may stand up to quite a few thermal publicity cycles. Mechnano’s supplies have additionally been validated and adopted by AM machine producers similar to Photocentric, Nexa3D, Arburg and Farsoon for the manufacture of static-dissipative elements. Final yr Mechnano’s eco-friendly Polyketone ESD powder, its first laser sintering product, was certified by Farsoon, and was additionally named as a finalist on this yr’s TCT Awards Supplies class. The fabric leverages Jabil’s low carbon footprint PK 5000 powder and incorporates D’Func expertise to make sure elements with constant electrostatic discharge properties at 107 ohms, whereas intently retaining Polyketone’s mechanical efficiency.
“It picks up after which it slows down,” Olga mentioned of the speed of innovation in CNTs, and AM basically. “We face challenges of adoption. There’s a number of hesitation from industries that closely depend on conventional manufacturing to completely embrace additive. Innovation occurred with carbon nanotubes, particularly in resins, three or so years in the past, however the precise integration and acceptance of those options into manufacturing processes requires a major time period for widespread adoption.”
For Ivanova, supplies are about “increasing the aptitude and flexibility of additive manufacturing processes.” At present, Mechnano is targeted on doing simply that. Its prospects are on the lookout for new properties like conductivity and electromagnetic shielding, with demand for the latter being led by the aerospace sector. With a strong portfolio of resins, the group’s efforts are being positioned on increasing laser sintering and pellet extrusion merchandise.
“I feel supplies corporations actually pushed the boundaries [of AM],” Ivanova concludes. “To not the boundaries however push the boundaries and carry on pushing by creating new composites and supplies with distinctive properties that ultimately, hopefully quickly, will result in wider adoption of additive applied sciences.”
This text initially appeared inside TCT Europe Version Vol. 32 Challenge 5 and TCT North American Version Vol. 10 Challenge 5. Subscribe right here to obtain your FREE print copy of TCT Journal, delivered to your door six instances a yr.
