Technical Summary

My research involves the 3D printing of a continuous chemical reactor. 3D printing offers a low cost method of producing tailored microreactors for active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). UCD have created a 3D printed miniaturised polymer chemical factory. The reactor is to be printed in PEEK due to its chemical resistance and thermal properties.

PEEK (polyaryletheretherketone) belongs to a family of high performance polymers. It has multiple advantages which make it an attractive resource in several applications. It has excellent thermal properties, radiation and chemical resistance, high impact strength, is flame retardant, has excellent electrical properties, and good wear and fatigue resistance.  PEEK can be processed through a variety of methods typically used to process thermoplastics, such as injection molding, extrusion, compression molding and 3D printing. However, printing in PEEK comes with inherent difficulties. PEEK is a semi-crystalline thermoplastic and residual stresses in the thermoplastic caused by solidification of the model causes crystallization. These extra stresses can lead to warping and defects when printing at these high temperatures.

My work focuses on optimizing the printing process and parameters in printing PEEK to produce continuous flow reactors. This involves investigating different parameters (e.g. nozzle temperature, print speed, material grade, calibration, etc) to determine their effect in printing the part, and optimize the prints.