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In additive manufacturing, or 3D printing, material is deposited drop by drop, to create micron to macroscale layers. A typical inkjet ink is a colloidal dispersion containing approximately ten components including solvent, the nano to micron scale particles which will comprise the printed layer, polymeric dispersants to stabilize the particles, and polymers to tune layer strength, surface tension and viscosity. To rationally and efficiently formulate such an ink, it is crucial to know how the components interact. Specifically, which polymers bond to the particle surfaces and how are they attached? Answering this question requires an experimental procedure that discriminates between polymer adsorbed on the particles and free polymer. Further, the method must provide details about how the functional groups of the polymer interact with the particle. In this protocol, we show how to employ centrifugation to separate particles with adsorbed polymer from the rest of the ink, prepare the separated samples for spectroscopic measurement, and use Diffuse Reflectance Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (DRIFTS) for accurate determination of dispersant/particle bonding mechanisms. A significant advantage of this methodology is that it provides high level mechanistic detail using only simple, commonly available laboratory equipment. This makes crucial data available to almost any formulation laboratory. The method is most useful for inks composed of metal, ceramic, and metal oxide particles in the range of 100 nm or greater. Because of the density and particle size of these inks, they are readily separable with centrifugation. Further, the spectroscopic signatures of such particles are easy to distinguish from absorbed polymer. The primary limitation of this technique is that the spectroscopy is performed ex-situ on the separated and dried particles as opposed to the particles in dispersion. However, results from attenuated total reflectance spectra of the wet separated particles provide evidence for the validity of the DRIFTS measurement.

Diffuse Reflectance Infrared Spectroscopic Identification of Dispersant/Particle Bonding Mechanisms in Functional Inks