3D printing ink and preparation method and application thereof
Technical Field
The invention relates to the technical field of three-dimensional structure forming, in particular to 3D printing ink and a preparation method and application thereof.
Background
In order to meet the potential requirements of the consumer electronics and internet of things fields for miniaturization and customization of electronic devices, the ability to realize patterning and integration of functional oxides is increasingly important. However, the micro-nano processing technology can only realize the processing of simple geometric figures generally through the cyclic and reciprocating deposition, masking, etching and other processes, and along with a large amount of energy consumption and time cost, the processes are difficult to expand to the customized consumption field. For this reason, a completely new material processing technology, i.e., a 3D direct writing technology, has received much attention from researchers in recent years.
The concept of direct write modeling was first proposed by Joseph Cesarano, national laboratory of Sandia, usa. The printing method firstly designs a required three-dimensional structural pattern by means of computer assistance, and then automatically controls a suspension conveying device which is arranged on a Z axis and consists of a needle cylinder and a needle nozzle through a computer. The suspension in the syringe is extruded from the nozzle into linear fluid with precise size by pneumatic or screw pressure, and the X-Y axes move according to the programmed track to deposit the linear fluid on the moving platform to obtain the first layer structure. After the first layer structure is formed, the suspension conveying device is driven by the Z-axis motor to move upwards to the height determined by the structural scheme, and the second layer structure is formed on the first layer structure. Subsequently, a complex three-dimensional periodic structure which cannot be prepared by the traditional forming process is obtained in a layer-by-layer stacking mode. The 3D direct-write molding technique has demonstrated an unrivaled integration capability in the field of customized electronic devices, particularly in the fields of micro-batteries, wearable optoelectronic devices, terahertz electromagnetic structures, conformal antennas, stress-strain sensors, soft robots, and the like, by virtue of its extrusion-type deposition process characteristics, abundant material selection, and negligible substrate limitations.
Functional oxides, as a functional material having a wide variety of gates and excellent photoelectric characteristics, have been widely used for the preparation of high-performance functional electronic devices. In order to enable complex, high-density structural integration within a limited spatial scale, high-precision deposition of functional oxides is necessary. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop various types of functional oxide inks that have excellent rheological properties such as shear thinning and high elastic modulus to achieve stable extrusion flow characteristics of the ink for a long time and high-precision print moldability. Based on current research reports, preparation schemes for functional oxidation inks can be broadly divided into two categories: sol-gel inks, colloidal suspension inks. The sol-gel ink usually contains a specific metal alkoxide, an organic solvent, a polymer stress relaxation agent, and the like. During the preparation process, the metal alkoxide can spontaneously generate hydrolysis reaction with water molecules. Then, the hydrolyzed alkoxide is subjected to dehydration polycondensation under the action of a catalyst, and further chain organic-inorganic hybrid polymer gel is formed. And printing the polymer gel with the three-dimensional structure by a direct writing forming technology. In the high-temperature annealing treatment, the polymer body is promoted to crack, and then the corresponding metal oxide is obtained. The method has been used for preparing titanium dioxide photonic crystals and tin-doped indium oxide transparent electrodes, and the structural precision of the electrodes can reach 250 nm. Nevertheless, the inks of this method are all made of precursor polymers corresponding to functional oxides. Therefore, in order to achieve the transition from organic to inorganic, ablation treatment at high temperatures (above 500 ℃) is unavoidable, which however would cause unpredictable severe shrinkage of the green body and cause severe deviations of the product structure from the design dimensions and even failure of the electronic system at high temperatures. Another ink design strategy is based on a high solid content colloidal suspension system to reduce green body shrinkage during post-processing. Reversible fluid-gel transition is realized by regulating and controlling the interaction force among the particles, so that the ink can smoothly extrude out of a needle head and keep a three-dimensional shape later. Up to now, the method has been widely applied to printing of different functional oxides, such as dielectric, piezoelectric, optical, conductive, magnetic and superconducting functional oxides. However, the structural feature sizes of the above functional oxides are all in the hundreds of microns range. So far, the highest printing precision of the nano-functional oxide ink prepared by the method is only tens of microns. For example, Li et al achieve direct-write printing of two-dimensional structures with 30 μm accuracy by preparing high-concentration barium titanate nanoparticle inks. Sun et al realized direct-write printing of three-dimensional miniature cells by designing lithium titanate and lithium iron phosphate nanoparticle inks, and the printing precision was also 30 μm. These printing accuracy limitations not only reduce the possibility of further manufacturing high integration density functional devices, but also reduce the gain of the micro three-dimensional structure on the intrinsic physical properties of the functional oxide, which together result in very limited improvement of device performance.
Disclosure of Invention
In order to solve the problems in the prior art, the invention provides 3D printing ink and a preparation method and application thereof, wherein tin oxide nanoparticles are used as a main component of the ink, and high-precision direct writing printing with colloidal suspension as system ink is realized.
In a first aspect, the present invention provides a 3D printing ink, the 3D printing ink comprising a tin oxide suspension;
the tin oxide suspension comprises tin oxide nanoparticles, and the particle size range is 50-70 nm.
Further, the tin oxide suspension also comprises a solvent and a dispersant;
the solvent is deionized water, and accounts for 10-30% of the mass of the tin oxide suspension; and/or the dispersing agent is water-soluble cationic polyelectrolyte, and the mass of the dispersing agent is 1-10% of that of the tin oxide nano particles.
Further, the dispersant is branched polyethyleneimine, and the number average molecular weight range is 600-70000 g/mol.
Further, still include: binders, rheology modifiers and humectants;
the adhesive is water-soluble linear high molecular polymer,
the rheology modifier is concentrated nitric acid or concentrated ammonia water;
the humectant is ethylene glycol or glycerol.
Further, the mass of the adhesive is 0.001% -0.1% of that of the tin oxide nano particles;
the mass of the rheology modifier is 0.1-1% of that of the tin oxide suspension;
the mass of the humectant is 1-3% of that of the tin oxide suspension.
In a second aspect, the present invention provides a method for preparing the 3D printing ink, comprising:
mixing a dispersing agent and tin oxide nano particles, and carrying out ball milling treatment to obtain a primary suspension;
and filtering the primary suspension to remove aggregates, centrifugally collecting solids, and dispersing in deionized water to obtain the tin oxide suspension.
Further, the ball milling treatment comprises the following steps:
ball milling is carried out for 1-10 min at the rotating speed of more than 500 rpm.
Furthermore, zirconia ball milling seeds with the diameter of 0.1-0.2 mm are adopted for ball milling, and the mass ratio of the milling seeds to the dispersing agent is 2-5: 2-5.
Further, the filtering is:
filtering by using a filter tip with the diameter of 5-20 microns;
the centrifugation is as follows:
centrifuging at the rotating speed of 5000-10000 rpm for 30-60 min;
the tin oxide suspension obtained by dispersing in deionized water is as follows:
dispersing in deionized water to obtain tin oxide suspension with solid content of 70-90%.
The invention further provides application of the 3D printing ink in printing integrated components.
Furthermore, the integrated components are one or more of a support structure, a fence structure, a concentric cylinder structure or a three-dimensional gas sensor structure.
Further, after preparing the tin oxide suspension, the method also comprises the following steps:
adding a rheological modifier, and adjusting the viscosity and modulus of the tin dioxide suspension to meet the direct writing forming requirement; and adding a humectant and an adhesive, and homogenizing the tin dioxide suspension for 10-40 min under the action of a self-rotation mixer with the rotation speed of 1000-2000 rpm.
The invention further provides a 3D printing method based on the 3D printing ink, which comprises the following steps:
and (3) filling the 3D printing ink into a needle cylinder, and fixing a glass needle head with the diameter of 3-20 mu m at the head of the needle cylinder. The tail of the syringe is provided with a piston, and the cavity of the tail of the syringe is communicated with an air pressure control device. The syringe is then fixed on the Z-axis of the printing platform. The computer controls the printing platform to move, and meanwhile, the air pressure controller controls the air pressure control device to give 20-80 PSI pressure to the needle cylinder, so that ink is pushed to flow out of the glass needle. And (3) realizing the deposition of a first layer structure (generally, a silicon wafer, a glass sheet or a special electronic component is selected as a deposition substrate) at a printing rate of 0.1-1 mm/s. After the first layer structure is obtained, the Z-axis is moved precisely up to the height determined by the structural scheme, and the printing of the second layer will be performed on the first layer structure. And then, preparing a complex miniature three-dimensional structure in a layer-by-layer superposed deposition mode.
Besides, the ink can be directly printed on a commercial micro electrode element, so that the three-dimensional patterning processing of the tin dioxide gas sensor is realized.
The invention has the following beneficial effects:
the invention provides tin dioxide colloidal suspension ink for high-precision 3D printing, wherein tin dioxide suspension is subjected to high-energy ball milling to realize adsorption of a dispersing agent on the surface of nanoparticles, printing ink with optimal viscoelasticity is obtained by high-speed centrifugation and addition of a rheological modification reagent, integration with different electronic elements can be realized by 3D direct writing, and then annealing treatment at 100-300 ℃ is carried out to remove organic additives, so that a three-dimensional tin dioxide structure is finally integrated in commercial electronic components.
The nano particles are used as the main component of the ink, so that subsequent high-temperature ablation treatment is not needed, and the damage to an integrated electronic element is reduced; and secondly, the invention has higher solid content, so that the shrinkage of the blank in the drying process can be reduced, and the consistency of the printing structure and the preset model is ensured.
In addition, the invention firstly provides a preparation scheme of the micron-sized tin dioxide 3D printing ink, expands the material selection range of the direct-writing forming functional oxide and further improves the printing precision of the direct-writing forming. The ink formula realizes high-precision direct-writing printing with 10 mu m or less by taking colloidal suspension as system ink for the first time.
Drawings
Fig. 1 is a schematic view of a 16-layer three-dimensional tin dioxide stent obtained by 3D printing provided in embodiment 1 of the present invention.
Fig. 2 is an enlarged cross-sectional view of a 16-layer three-dimensional tin dioxide stent obtained by 3D printing provided in example 1 of the present invention.
Fig. 3 is a schematic structural view of a two-dimensional tin dioxide fence obtained by 3D printing according to embodiment 2 of the present invention.
Fig. 4 is a schematic structural view of a three-dimensional tin dioxide concentric cylinder obtained by 3D printing according to embodiment 3 of the present invention.
Fig. 5 is a partially enlarged view of a three-dimensional tin dioxide concentric cylinder structure obtained by 3D printing according to embodiment 3 of the present invention.
Fig. 6 is a schematic diagram of a three-dimensional gas sensor structure printed on a micro-interdigital electrode according to embodiment 4 of the present invention.
Fig. 7 is a graph of resistance response data of the printed three-dimensional gas sensor provided in example 4 of the present invention at 250 ℃ to acetylene gas with a concentration of 10 ppm.
FIG. 8 is a graph of data relating viscosity to shear rate for tin dioxide colloidal ink provided in example 4 of the present invention.
FIG. 9 is a graph of data relating shear modulus to shear stress for tin dioxide colloidal inks provided in example 4 of the present invention.
Detailed Description
The following examples are intended to illustrate the invention but are not intended to limit the scope of the invention.
Example 1
The present embodiment provides a process for preparing a three-dimensional tin dioxide stent with a minimum feature size of 20 μm, which comprises:
1. 0.3g of polyethyleneimine with a molecular weight of 600g/mol is added to 30g of deionized water and stirred at room temperature until the polyethyleneimine is completely dissolved in the deionized water. Then 30g of tin dioxide nano particles and 30g of zirconia ball milling seeds with the diameter of 0.1mm are added, and high-energy ball milling is carried out for 1min at the rotating speed of 2000rpm, so as to obtain a primary suspension with the mass fraction of 50%.
2. The primary suspension was filtered through a 20 μm filter to remove all agglomerates and the filtered primary suspension was placed in a centrifuge tube, centrifuged at 5000rpm for 30min at 20 ℃, the precipitate collected and redispersed in another portion of deionized water to give a 90% high concentration tin dioxide suspension.
3. Adding 0.06g of concentrated ammonia water, and adjusting the viscosity and modulus of the tin dioxide suspension to meet the direct writing forming requirement. And finally, adding 0.33g of ethylene glycol and 0.01g of polyvinyl alcohol with the molecular weight of 100000g/mol, and homogenizing the tin dioxide suspension for 10min under the action of a self-rotation mixer with the rotating speed of 2000rpm to obtain the 3D printing tin dioxide colloidal ink.
4. The glass micro-needle with the diameter of 20 mu m is arranged at the head of the needle cylinder, the piston is arranged at the tail of the needle cylinder, the computer controls the printing platform to move, the air pressure controller controls the air pressure control device to give 80PSI pressure to the needle cylinder, direct writing printing is carried out on the silicon wafer, the printing speed is 1mm/s, and the number of printing layers is 16. Followed by annealing at 100 c for 2 hours in an air atmosphere, resulting in a 16-layer three-dimensional tin dioxide scaffold, as shown in fig. 1 and 2.
Example 2
The present embodiment provides a process for preparing a two-dimensional tin dioxide fence structure with a minimum feature size of 3 μm, which includes:
1. 1g of polyethyleneimine with the molecular weight of 10000g/mol is added into 50g of deionized water, and the mixture is stirred at room temperature until the polyethyleneimine is completely dissolved in the deionized water. Then 50g of tin dioxide nano particles and 50g of zirconia ball milling seeds with the diameter of 0.1mm are added, and high-energy ball milling is carried out for 10min at the rotating speed of 2000rpm, so as to obtain a primary suspension with the mass fraction of 50%.
2. The primary suspension was filtered through a 5 μm filter to remove all aggregates and the filtered primary suspension was placed in a centrifuge tube, centrifuged at 10000rpm for 30min at 20 ℃, the precipitate collected and redispersed in another portion of deionized water to give a 75% high concentration tin dioxide suspension.
3. 0.7g of concentrated nitric acid, and adjusting the viscosity and the modulus of the tin dioxide suspension to meet the requirement of direct-writing forming. And finally, adding 1g of glycerol and 0.0005g of cellulose with the molecular weight of 100000g/mol, and homogenizing the suspension for 20min under the action of a self-rotating mixer with the rotating speed of 2000rpm to obtain the tin dioxide colloidal ink.
4. The glass micro-needle with the diameter of 3 mu m is arranged at the head of the needle cylinder, the piston is arranged at the tail of the needle cylinder, the computer controls the printing platform to move, the air pressure controller controls the air pressure control device to give the needle cylinder 20PSI pressure, direct writing printing is carried out on the silicon wafer, and the printing speed is 0.1 mm/s. And then annealing treatment is carried out for 2 hours in an air atmosphere at 300 ℃, so that a two-dimensional tin dioxide fence structure is obtained, as shown in figure 3.
Example 3
The embodiment provides a process for preparing a three-dimensional tin dioxide concentric cylinder structure with a minimum feature size of 8 μm, which comprises the following steps:
1. 1g of polyethyleneimine with the molecular weight of 70000g/mol is added into 20g of deionized water, and the mixture is stirred at room temperature until the polyethyleneimine is completely dissolved in the deionized water. Then 20g of tin dioxide nano particles and 20g of zirconia ball milling seeds with the diameter of 0.1mm are added, and high-energy ball milling is carried out for 10min at the rotating speed of 2000rpm, so as to obtain a primary suspension with the mass fraction of 50%.
2. The primary suspension was filtered through a 10 μm filter to remove all agglomerates and the filtered primary suspension was placed in a centrifuge tube, centrifuged at 8000rpm for 40min at a temperature of 20 ℃, the precipitate collected and redispersed in another portion of deionized water to give a 78% high concentration tin dioxide suspension.
4. Adding 0.13g of concentrated nitric acid, and adjusting the viscosity and modulus of the suspension to meet the requirement of direct-write forming. And finally, adding 0.5g of glycol and 0.001g of polyethylene glycol with the molecular weight of 200000g/mol, and carrying out homogenization treatment on the tin dioxide suspension for 40min under the action of a self-rotation mixer with the rotation speed of 1000rpm to obtain the 3D printing tin dioxide colloidal ink.
5. The head of the needle cylinder is provided with a glass micro needle with the diameter of 8 mu m, the tail of the needle cylinder is provided with a piston, the computer controls the printing platform to move, meanwhile, the air pressure controller controls the air pressure control device to give 50PSI pressure to the needle cylinder, direct writing printing is carried out on the silicon wafer, and the printing speed is 0.1 mm/s. Followed by annealing treatment at 200 c for 2 hours in an air atmosphere, a three-dimensional tin dioxide concentric cylinder structure was obtained, as shown in fig. 4 and 5.
Example 4
The present embodiment provides a process for preparing a three-dimensional gas sensitive layer sensor structure with a minimum feature size of 5 μm, which includes:
and is integrated with a micro electrode for gas-sensitive detection.
1. 2g of polyethyleneimine with the molecular weight of 10000g/mol are added into 20g of deionized water, and the mixture is stirred at room temperature until the polyethyleneimine is completely dissolved in the deionized water. Then 20g of tin dioxide nano particles and 20g of zirconia ball milling seeds with the diameter of 0.1mm are added, and high-energy ball milling is carried out for 5min at the rotating speed of 2000rpm, so as to obtain a primary suspension with the mass fraction of 50%.
2. The primary suspension was filtered through a 5 μm filter to remove all agglomerates and the filtered primary suspension was placed in a centrifuge tube, centrifuged at 9000rpm for 60min at a temperature of 20 ℃, the precipitate collected and redispersed in another portion of deionized water to give a high-concentration tin dioxide suspension with a solids content of 70%.
3. Adding 0.03g of concentrated nitric acid, and adjusting the viscosity and modulus of the suspension to meet the requirement of direct-write forming. And finally, adding 0.85g of glycol and 0.02g of polyvinylpyrrolidone with the molecular weight of 200000g/mol, and homogenizing the suspension for 40min under the action of a self-rotation mixer with the rotation speed of 2000rpm to obtain the 3D printing tin dioxide colloidal ink.
4. The glass micro-needle with the diameter of 5 mu m is arranged at the head of the needle cylinder, the piston is arranged at the tail of the needle cylinder, the computer controls the printing platform to move, meanwhile, the air pressure controller controls the air pressure control device to give 30PSI pressure to the needle cylinder, direct writing printing is carried out on the miniature interdigital electrode, and the printing speed is 0.5 mm/s. And then annealing treatment is carried out for 2 hours in an air atmosphere at 300 ℃, so as to obtain a three-dimensional gas sensor structure, as shown in fig. 6. The resistance response data of the three-dimensional gas sensor to acetylene gas with the concentration of 10ppm at 250 ℃ is shown in fig. 7, and it can be seen that the resistance of the three-dimensional gas sensor is remarkably reduced under the action of the acetylene gas, which shows that the three-dimensional gas sensor has obvious response characteristics to the acetylene gas.
The data curve of the change of the viscosity of the 3D printing tin dioxide colloidal ink obtained in step 3 of this example with the shear rate is shown in fig. 8, and the viscosity gradually decreases with the increase of the shear rate, indicating that the ink has a significant shear thinning characteristic and has the ability of being smoothly extruded under a high shear stress. The data curve of the change of the shear modulus of the tin dioxide colloidal ink along with the shear stress obtained in the embodiment is shown in fig. 9, and it can be seen that the yield stress of the ink is about 200Pa, and when the shear stress is lower than 200Pa, the elastic modulus of the ink is much higher than the loss modulus, which indicates that the ink has a remarkable self-supporting characteristic after being extruded, and can maintain a complex three-dimensional structure without collapse.
Although the invention has been described in detail hereinabove with respect to a general description and specific embodiments thereof, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that modifications or improvements may be made thereto based on the invention. Accordingly, such modifications and improvements are intended to be within the scope of the invention as claimed.