Transitional Suspensions Containing Thermosensitive Dispersant for Three-Dimensional Printing

Tailoring the rheology of suspensions is an essential and persistent issue form many applications, especially three-dimensional (3D) printing. Colloidal suspensions of ceramic powder (Al2O3) dispersed by a special thermosensitive dispersant (poly(acrylic acid) poly(N-isopropylacrylamide), PAA-PNIPAM) were designed, which underwent a remarkable fluid-gel transition in response to thermal stimulus due to the phase transition of the graft chains (-PNIPAM). 3D periodic structures with a fine size of 100 mu m were assembled by 3D printing.