Chemical resistance of 3D printable polymers: literature review: Difference between revisions

This is a literature review for a study on the chemical resistance of 3D printable polymers. This literature review is initially targeted at liquid chemicals which can "attack" 3D printed polymers. In the future gas and plasma attack can be studied but for now it is out of the scope of this lit review.

Introduction

Our target is to find out what 3D printing filaments tolerate the harsh chemicals that we use in semiconductor processing and other cleanroom processes. 3D printing filaments are made from plastics by using additives (plasticizers and colorants), and the vendors rarely or ever provide the information on them to the customer. Therefore, it is not guaranteed that if a certain polymer tolerates, for example, HCl, 3D printed objects made from the same polymer could be used to make custom labware. The chemical resistance of polymers is also affected by chain length, and we do not know if the 3D printing itself causes any changes to that.

Polypropylene (PP) is a 3D printable polymer that can tolerate many chemicals, and the authors of articles listed below have made reaction vessels and microfluidics applications from it. But are we limited to PP? In this we need to search for clues in chemical compatibility charts, also found below.

We will experiment on 3D printing filaments and 3D printed objects by testing them in different chemicals and observing if they swell or dissolve.

Chemicals and processes

List of chemicals

First, the resistance of 3D printable materials at least to the following solvents, acids and solutions is tested:

• Deionized H2O
• Isopropanol
• Acetone
• Hydrochloric acid (HCl), 37%
• Ammonia (NH3), aqueous solution 25%
• Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), aqueous solution 30%
• Nitric acid (HNO3)
• Phosphoric acid (H3PO4)
• Acetic acid, concentrated

These chemicals are common chemicals used in many laboratories and many semiconductor processing steps, such as in the cleaning of silicon wafers.

Chemical processes

• Resist strip
• RCA1 and RCA2 wafer cleaning processes, both in RT and 80°C
• Al etch
• Si etch
• HF dip
• BHF dip
• Aqua regia
• Piranha

3D printing materials and their chemical properties

PLA (Polylactic acid)

One of the most used 3D printing filaments. Various vendors and available in multiple colors. Biodegradable, potentially not very resistant to chemicals.

ABS (Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene)

Co-polyesters

Commercial 3D printing filaments: Inova Co-Polyester, ColorFabb nGen

PETG

PP (Polypropylene)

Resistant to various laboratory chemicals. Quite resistant to acids and bases. Widely used in clean rooms. Is susceptible to oxidation for example peroxides, as it is just a hydrocarbon.

PC (Polycarbonate)

PETT

Taulman T-glase is made of PETT.

FEP

Should be in the sweet spot of fluoropolymers. Low enough melting point to be printable but chemically very durable. According to some data should be resistant to nearly all room temperature liquid chemiclas used in clean rooms.

PEI

Ultem(R) is a commercial plastic which mainly consists of PEI.

Nylon

Taulman Alloy 910 is apparently Nylon-based.

PETG

Polyethylene terephthalate modified with glycol.

Sources

Journal Articles

• Mark D. Symes, Philip J. Kitson, Jun Yan, Craig J. Richmond, Geoffrey J. T. Cooper, Richard W. Bowman, Turlif Vilbrandt & Leroy Cronin: Integrated 3D-printed reactionware for chemical synthesis and analysis, Nature Chemistry 4, 349–354 (2012), doi:10.1038/nchem.1313
  • Reactionware for inorganic and organic synthesis
  • Reactionware: combines reaction vessel combined with reagents, catalysts, or control of shape to produce a desired result
  • Printed-in: catalysts and in-situ characterization
  • Modifying the geometry changes the outcome of the reaction
  • Robocasting of acetoxysilicone polymer (Loctite 5366): does not require heat, the material hardens quickly.
  • The properties of the material modified by e.g. mixing in conductive carbon black
  • Reusable reactionware, cleaved reactor could be glued shut again with the same material after cutting it open

• Philip J. Kitson, Mali H. Rosnes, Victor Sans, Vincenza Dragone and Leroy Cronin: Configurable 3D-Printed millifluidic and microfluidic ‘lab on a chip’ reactionware devices, Lab Chip, 2012, 12, 3267–3271. DOI: 10.1039/c2lc40761b
  • Millifluidic devices, made using PP (FFF, 3DTouch printer)
  • Properties of PP: robust, flexible, chemically inert, low cost
  • Three different millifluidic devices were made and demonstrated
  • Containers for solid materials were filled during printing and the printing was continued, which sealed the containers
  • Time and cost-effective method compared to traditional methods, single device takes only hours to build
  • Future interest: solvent compatibility

• Jennifer S. Mathieson, Mali H. Rosnes, Victor Sans, Philip J. Kitson and Leroy Cronin: Continuous parallel ESI-MS analysis of reactions carried out in a bespoke 3D printed device, Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2013, 4, 285–291. doi:10.3762/bjnano.4.31
  • 3D printed tailored deviced linked to a mass spectrometer
  • 3DTouch printer used to print thermoplastic PP
  • PP: low cost, robust, flexible, chemically inert
  • Screw fittings made from PEEK (harder than PP), provides a tighter seal

• Philip J. Kitson , Mark D. Symes , Vincenza Dragone and Leroy Cronin: Combining 3D printing and liquid handling to produce user-friendly reactionware for chemical synthesis and purification, Chem. Sci., 2013, 4, 3099-3103. DOI: 10.1039/C3SC51253C
• Bethany C. Gross, Jayda L. Erkal, Sarah Y. Lockwood, Chengpeng Chen, and Dana M. Spence: Evaluation of 3D Printing and Its Potential Impact on Biotechnology and the Chemical Sciences, Anal. Chem., 2014, 86 (7), pp 3240–3253, DOI: 10.1021/ac403397r
• Philip J. Kitson, Ross J. Marshall, Deliang Long, Ross S. Forgan, and Leroy Cronin: 3D Printed High-Throughput Hydrothermal Reactionware for Discovery, Optimization, and Scale-Up, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2014, 53, 12723 –12728 . DOI: 10.1002/anie.201402654
• Jayda L. Erkal, Asmira Selimovic , Bethany C. Gross, Sarah Y. Lockwood, Eric L. Walton, Stephen McNamara, R. Scott Martin, and Dana M. Spence: 3D printed microfluidic devices with integrated versatile and reusable electrodes, Lab Chip, 2014, 14, 2023-2032. DOI: 10.1039/C4LC00171K
• Philip J. Kitson, Stefan Glatzel, Wei Chen, Chang-Gen Lin, Yu-Fei Song,and Leroy Cronin: 3D printing of versatile reactionware for chemical synthesis, Nat. Protocols, 2016, 11 (5), 920-936

Chemical resistance charts

• Rosemount analytical huge chart, resistance as a function of temperature
• Curbell Plastics
• Thermo Scientific Nalgene Products, Cornell University Sevier lab
• Ensinger Plastics
• Sirmax

Books

• Schreirs, J. Modern fluoropolymers. Scheirs, J., Ed (1997): 32.
• Moiseev, Yu V., and Gennadiĭ Efremovich Zaikov. Chemical resistance of polymers in aggressive media. Springer Science & Business Media, 1987.
• Seymour R.B., Carraher C.E. (1984) Chemical Resistance of Polymers. In: Structure—Property Relationships in Polymers. Springer, Boston, MA.

Searches

Google:

• Chemical resistance of 3D printing materials
• 3D printing filament chemical resistance
• Chemical resistance of polymers
• Chemically resistant 3D printing material
• Chemically resistant 3D printing filament

Scholar:

• Chemical resistance of 3D printing materials
• Fused filament fabrication materials resistance
• Chemical resistance of polymers

This page was created as part of the 2017 Aalto University course L3999 3D Printing of Open Source Hardware for Science.It's open edit now, so feel free to improve it.Read more...

This page is a literature review.Feel free to edit this page and add sources and summaries.Read more...