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US 11,305,455 B2Granted
Xerographic 3D printing method for forming shaped objects
AssigneeXerox Corporation
InventorsChristopher D. Blair, David C. Irving
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A shaped ceramic or metallic object is formed by sectioning a model of a shaped body into 2-dimensional slices. For each slice, a toner material is electrostatically printed on a polymer sheet. The toner material includes solid particles. The printed sheets are assembled into a stack and the stack is depolymerized and sintered to form the ceramic object.
Claims18
A method for forming a shaped object comprising:
- sectioning a model of a shaped body into 2-dimensional slices;
- for each slice, electrostatically printing a toner material on a respective flexible polymer sheet to form a printed sheet, the toner material comprising solid particles which form a ceramic or metal when sintered, the printing including feeding the polymer sheets from a print media source, which holds a supply of the polymer sheets, conveying the polymer sheets along a print media path to a marking engine where each polymer sheet is printed with a respective toner image, and fusing the toner image to the respective polymer sheet;
- assembling the printed sheets one on top of the other into a stack, in the stack, each printed sheet comprising a respective polymer sheet and a toner image;
- while applying pressure to the stack of printed sheets, depolymerizing the stack of printed sheets together to remove polymer of the polymer sheets from the stack;
- and
- sintering the depolymerized stack to form the shaped object.
3 more elements
A method for forming a ceramic object comprising:
- providing a print file in which a model of a ceramic body has been sectioned into 2-dimensional slices;
- for each slice, printing a toner material on a polymer sheet to form a respective printed sheet, the toner material comprising at least 40 wt. % ceramic-forming particles and a binder comprising a polymer, the polymer sheet comprising at least one of a polyoxymethylene homopolymer and a polyoxymethylene copolymer;
- assembling the printed sheets comprising the polymer sheets printed with toner material into a multilayer stack of printed sheets;
- and
- depolymerizing the multilayer stack of printed sheets together to remove the polymer sheets;
- and
- sintering the depolymerized stack to form the ceramic object.
4 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.