Description

Engineered Porous Print Materials enables manufacturers to produce complex, high-surface-area structures with precisely engineered porosity at macro, micro and nano scales — all from a single printable composition and a standard stereolithography printer. By eliminating the need for secondary coatings, multi-step mold processes or specialized equipment, this technology developed by Los Alamos National Laboratory simplifies the production of advanced porous materials while opening design possibilities that conventional fabrication methods cannot achieve. Organizations seeking to improve the performance of catalytic reactors, filtration systems, thermal management devices, energy storage components or biomedical scaffolds, to name a few, can now access a versatile, low-cost platform that translates digital designs directly into functional, multi-material foam structures with tunable chemistry and architecture. How it Works The process begins with a specially formulated resin that contains three key ingredients mixed together: a polymer precursor that can be hardened by light, a porogenic solvent that induces phase separation during hardening, and a structural precursor (such as a metal salt or ceramic precursor) that will ultimately form the skeleton of the final part. When loaded into a commercial SLA 3D printer, the resin is cured layer by layer using light, producing a printed intermediate structure composed of a nanoporous polymer gel with the structural precursor distributed uniformly throughout. Post-printing processing — which may include controlled heating, chemical reduction or catalytic treatments depending on the target material — converts the structural precursor into the desired solid (metal, ceramic or carbon) while decomposing and removing the polymer gel. The spaces formerly occupied by the polymer gel become a second, finer tier of porosity nested inside the larger pores defined by the printed geometry, and additional processing steps such as de-alloying can introduce a third, nanoscale tier of porosity. The entire workflow uses a single resin formulation with no need to add coatings or secondary materials after printing. Technical Description The printable composition is engineered so that the polymer precursor component (typically an acrylate monomer such as polyethylene glycol diacrylate) undergoes photopolymerization in the presence of a porogenic solvent (such as dimethylformamide or water) that is deliberately chosen for its low compatibility with the resulting polymer network. During curing, the polymer phase-separates from the solvent, creating a sponge-like gel with pore sizes and volumes that can be tuned by adjusting the solvent-to-monomer ratio, solvent chemistry and the inclusion of structure-directing additives. A photoinitiator and a polymerization quenching compound (an absorber dye) are included to control layer thickness and prevent unwanted curing beyond the intended print pattern. The structural precursor — whic…

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