3D Printed Active Objects based on the Promising PEDOT: PSS Resin: Investigation of their Integration inside an Electronic Circuit

Abstract

Nowadays, the interest in the additive manufacturing (AM) field is not only from a technological point of view, but also from a materials perspective. The advantages of printing functional parts allowed the transition from AM intended as mere prototypes factory, to complete production process for small batches of highly customized devices. Especially for micrometric devices, the best solution in terms of material can be found in photo-sensitive polymers. This study was focused on finding the best way to make stereolithography (SL) printed conductive parts easily embeddable in an electronic circuit. A SL resin containing the electrically conductive polymer poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) was considered for its interesting property to behave like an electrochemical transistor in proper conditions. Different standard metal plating techniques were evaluated to find out the best one for the present case study. After metallization, samples were electrically characterized to find out conductivity values. Electroplating turned out to be a valid solution, generating a metal layer on the surface without damaging the printed part and enhancing the electric contact. The reported outcomes pave the way for further studies on polymeric parts welding, which often represents a bottleneck in polymeric device integration in electronic circuits.

Effect of Volatile Organic Compounds Adsorption on 3D-Printed PEGDA:PEDOT for Long-Term Monitoring Devices

“…Three-dimensional printing, or additive manufacturing, has been largely employed for producing polymer-based materials for biomedical applications, soft electronics, and sensors [ 27 ]. However, few works have been reported on the 3D printing of a poly(ethylene glycol) diacrylate (PEGDA) and poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene)-poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) blend [ 28 , 29 ]. Furthermore, the preparation of conductive systems for the assembly of monitoring devices has essentially been restricted to the extrusion-based printing method [ 30 , 31 ].…”

DLP printing of a flexible micropattern Si/PEDOT:PSS/PEG electrode for lithium-ion batteries

“…A combination of PEDOT and 3D-printed polymers may be regarded as an effective manufacturing technique for fabricating custom-designed materials for cumulative adsorption. 15 However, it is still difficult to directly construct a suitable 3D porous structure for LIBs through a simple and fast manufacturing process. DLP-based printing is used to fabricate nanocomposites and for precision casting and navigation owing to its quick forming speed, cost-effective production capacity, and high printing accuracy.…”

3D Printed Supercapacitor Exploiting PEDOT-Based Resin and Polymer Gel Electrolyte

“…This represents an advantage in the choice of the conductive polymer, considering that other conductive polymers show lower conductivities, as in the case of polypirrole with 10 −3 S/cm [58]. Other characterizations of PEGDA:PEDOT resin are reported in [49,51,55,59]. As regards the final device, Figure 2 reports the picture of it at each fabrication step, from alumina laser machining to final packaging.…”