Carbon Additive Manufacturing with a Near-replica "green-to-brown" Transformation.

Nanocomposites containing nanoscale materials offer exciting opportunities to encode nanoscale features into macroscale dimensions, which produces unprecedented impacts in material design and application. However, conventional methods cannot process nanocomposites with a high particle loading, as well as nanocomposites with the ability to be tailored at multiple scales. We report a Composite Architected Mesoscale Process (CAMP) strategy that brings particle loading nanoscale materials combined with multiscale features including nanoscale manipulation, mesoscale architecture, and macroscale formation to create spatially programmed nanocomposites with high particle loading and multiscale tailorability. The process features a low-shrinking (<10%) "green-to-brown" transformation, making a near geometric replica of the 3D design to produce a "brown" part with full nanomaterials to allow further matrix infill. Our demonstration includes additively manufactured carbon nanocomposites containing carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and thermoset epoxy, leading to multiscale CNTs tailorability, performance improvement, and 3D complex geometry feasibility. The process can produce nanomaterial-assembled architectures with 3D geometry and multiscale features and can incorporate a wide range of matrix materials, such as polymers, metals, and ceramics, to fabricate nanocomposites for new device structures and applications. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.