Researchers develop high-resolution process for graphene 3D printing

Researchers from Virginia Tech and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) announced they have developed a process that additively manufactures complex 3D graphene shapes at a resolution an order of magnitude greater than previously possible. Typically, graphene is produced as 2D sheets or extruded to create simple objects that stacked on top of itself.

“Now a designer can design three-dimensional topology comprised of interconnected graphene sheets,” said Xiaoyu “Rayne” Zheng, assistant professor with the Department of Mechanical Engineering in the College of Engineering and director of the Advanced Manufacturing and Metamaterials Lab. “This new design and manufacturing freedom will lead to optimization of strength, conductivity, mass transport, strength and weight density that are not achievable in graphene aerogels.”

The process began three years ago when Ryan Hensleigh, a third-year macromolecular Science and Engineering Ph.D. student, began working with Zheng at LLNL and later at Virginia Tech.

To create these complex structures, Hensleigh started with graphene oxide, a precursor to graphene, crosslinking the sheets to form a porous hydrogel. Breaking the graphene oxide hydrogel with ultrasound and adding light-sensitive acrylate polymers, Hensleigh could use projection micro-stereolithography to create the desired solid 3D structure with the graphene oxide trapped in the long, rigid chains of acrylate polymer. Finally, Hensleigh would place the 3D structure in a furnace to burn off the polymers and fuse the object together, leaving behind a pure and lightweight graphene aerogel.

The key finding of this work, which was recently published with collaborators at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the journal Materials Horizons, is that the researchers created graphene structures with a resolution an order of magnitude finer than ever printed. Hensleigh said other processes could print down to 100 microns, but the new technique allows him to print down to 10 microns in resolution, which approaches the size of actual graphene sheets.

“We’ve been able to show you can make a complex, three-dimensional architecture of graphene while still preserving some of its intrinsic prime properties,” Zheng said. “Usually when you try to 3D print graphene or scale up, you lose most of their lucrative mechanical properties found in its single sheet form.”
https://vt.edu/
www.llnl.gov