Polymers

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Dear Colleagues,

In the last decade, additive manufacturing’s ability to produce customized parts with complex shapes has led to increased global demand for this technology as a manufacturing solution in various fields of engineering, from consumer goods, medicine, electronics, and construction to automotives and aerospace. Three-dimensional-printing-based technologies using polymeric materials offer cost-effectiveness, customized geometries, complex design, high-precision manufacturing, and reduced processing time while using highly sustainable materials.

This Special Issue aims to gather the latest research in the field of 3D-printed polymers designed for application in the fields in which this technology attracts the most attention and interest. Papers are expected to implement experimental or simulation approaches to challenges in polymer and polymeric composite 3D printing techniques that are encountered in each engineering field. Overcoming 3D printing challenges will greatly contribute to advancing development in topics related to transport, engineering, medicine, and the environment. This Special Issue will focus on both fundamental and applied research aimed at the development, characterization, and application of polymers for 3D printing technologies implemented in, but not limited to, aerospace, automotives, construction, medicine, prototyping, and consumer goods (including electronics, sports, devices, spare parts, etc.).

Dr. Cristina-Elisabeta Pelin
Prof. Dr. Anton Ficai
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Polymers is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Related Special Issue

Published Papers (1 paper)

Research

14 pages, 5078 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Electrowriting of SU-8 Microfibers

by Diego Armando Sandoval Salaiza, Nico Valsangiacomo, Niyazi Ulas Dinç, Mustafa Yildirim, Jorge Madrid-Wolff, Arnaud Bertsch, Sebastien Jiguet, Paul D. Dalton, Juergen Brugger and Christophe Moser

Polymers 2024, 16(12), 1630; https://doi.org/10.3390/polym16121630 (registering DOI) - 8 Jun 2024

Viewed by 141

Abstract

As microfiber-based additive manufacturing (AM) technologies, melt electrowriting (MEW) and solution electrowriting (SEW) have demonstrated efficacy with more biomedically relevant materials. By processing SU-8 resin using MEW and SEW techniques, a material with substantially different mechanical, thermal, and optical properties than that typically processed is introduced. SU-8 polymer is temperature sensitive and requires the devising of a specific heating protocol to be properly processed. Smooth-surfaced microfibers resulted from MEW of SU8 for a short period (from 30 to 90 min), which provides the greatest control and, thus, reproducibility of the printed microfibers. This investigation explores various parameters influencing the electrowriting process, printing conditions, and post-processing to optimize the fabrication of intricate 3D structures. This work demonstrates the controlled generation of straight filaments and complex multi-layered architectures, which were characterized by brightfield, darkfield, and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). This research opens new avenues for the design and development of 3D-printed photonic systems by leveraging the properties of SU-8 after both MEW and SEW processing. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Polymeric Materials and Their Application in 3D Printing, 2nd Edition)

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