Low solid loading, low viscosity, high uniform shrinkage ceramic resin for stereolithography based additive manufacturing

In this work, a three-dimensional (3D) ceramic scaffold of barium titanate (BaTiO3) is realized by stereolithographic (SLA) of BaTiO3 powder and photopolymer with a high resolution and followed by a controlled thermal treatment. The photosensitive polymer in the resin mixture plays a vital role in dispersing ceramic powders and supporting complex structures cured by ultraviolet (UV) laser. The fabricated BaTiO3 and photopolymer composite part shows homogeneous dispersion of BaTiO3 microparticles. With a controlled thermal treatment, the photopolymer was carefully removed from the composite during the debinding process. Further sintering of the debinded ceramic parts at 1100 ℃, 1200 ℃, and 1300 °C shows a huge-volume shrinkage of up to 98.25% at a low concentration of ceramic powders (10 wt%). The sintered BaTiO3 ceramic parts are structurally intact with SEM images showing uniform microstructures with a relative density of 73.48%. The ultra-high shrinkage rate in this process provides a way to create complex 3D ceramic scaffolds with higher resolution than the SLA printing resolution. With the success of sintering ultralow solid loading ceramic-polymer composites, low-cost SLA 3D printers could be used to manufacture various ceramic parts with an improved resolution. This process allows widely application of 3D printed ceramics parts in the area of biomedical, aerospace, automotive, and energy fields.