EUROPEAN CONGRESS AND EXHIBITION ON ADVANCED MATERIALS AND PROCESSES - EUROMAT 2021

The techniques of additive manufacturing (AM) are encompassed within the disruptive technologies that aspire to revolutionize industrial production systems within the so-called Industry 4.0. The flexibility of the designs and the complex geometries that can be generated open a new scenario of possibilities for the realization of new industrial products with improved properties. One of the main challenges in the application of these technologies focuses on the development of new functional materials processable by AM. In this context, surface science and engineering is a well-established technological area that encompasses a series of processes of modification at the surface level of the materials to confer new functional properties (or improvement of existing ones). The concept of surface functionalization integrates a wide variety of procedures and technologies that include surface modification by plasma, laser, ions or chemical agents and the deposition of coatings using physical (PVD) or chemical (CVD, ALD) techniques. However, these techniques have not yet been sufficiently explored for improving the properties of materials processed by additive manufacturing, in particular for the biomedical sector.

In this talk, a summary of potential applications of plasma-based surface science and engineering techniques will be given. These will include the use of different plasmas (atmospheric, barrier discharge, corona, etc.) for the modification of material properties (i.e. biocompatible thermoplastics processable by AM as polyether ether ketone (PEEK) or polyether ketone ketone (PEKK) and during the manufacturing process (i.e. for improvement of adhesion between the layers of the printed material), but also the application of plasma-based coatings (metallic or ceramic-based) for the surface functionalization of the materials at the nano- and micro-scale to provide the printed pieces with new functional properties (i.e. better osteointegration, bio-tribological response or antibacterial activity).