Zirconia UV-curable colloids for additive manufacturing via hybrid inkjet printing-stereolithography

Currently, additive manufacturing of ceramics by stereolithography (SLA) is limited to single materials and by a poor thickness resolution that strongly depends on the ceramic particles-UV light interaction. Combining selective laser curing with inkjet printing represents a novel strategy to overcome these constrains.

Nonetheless, this approach requires UV-curable inks that allow hardening of the printed material and sintering to high density. In this work, we report how to design an ink for inkjet printing of yttria stabilized zirconia (YSZ) which can be impressed by addition of UV-curable monomers. We especially show how the formulation of the inks and particularly the UV-monomer concentration impacts the printability and the UV-curing.

This leads to prints that are resistant to solvent washing first and densify to 96% dense YSZ layers after sintering.