Design and Characterization of Waterborne Polyurethane-Urea based Nanocomposites for 3D Printing

Abstract

Polyurethane-ureas are very versatile polymers that can be process in many ways and used in an extremely wide field of applications. At the same time, 3D printing offers the opportunity to make one on one personalized designs, a quality remarkably beneficial for the biomedical field. In this work, the use of a waterborne polyurethane-urea synthesized for its used in 3D printing is studied. The addition of different nanoentities is analyzed, such as cellulose nanofibers, carboxylated nanofibers, graphene oxide, graphene and natural extracts and their effect on the printability and properties of the materials is assessed. The potential of these nanocomposites for two 3D printing methods is analyzed, namely fused deposition modeling and direct ink writing.