Thermoplastic binders for use in binder jetting additive manufacturing

Abstract

A method of binder jet printing a part including depositing a layer of a powder on a working surface of a binder jet printer and selectively printing a binder solution having a linkable thermoplastic binder into the layer of the powder in a pattern to generate a printed layer. The pattern is representative of a structure of a layer of the part. The linkable thermoplastic binder includes a first polymer strand and a second polymer strand, the first polymer strand includes a first functional group and the second polymer strand includes a second functional group, and the first and second functional groups non-covalently couple the first polymer strand with the second polymer strand. The method of binder jet printing a part also includes curing the linkable thermoplastic binder in the printed layer to generate a layer of a green body part, heating the green body part above a first temperature to remove at least a portion of the linkable thermoplastic binder and generate a brown body part, and heating the brown body part above a second temperature to sinter the powder to generate the part. The part is substantially free of char residue.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.