Additive manufacturing of calcium carbonate samples with multiscale porosity

Abstract

This research internship project aims to develop a manufacturing route to produce calcium carbonate samples with controlled porosity at multiple scales. This BEPE is part of a PhD project to produce artificial carbonate rocks. Ceramics with hierarchical porosity have many desirable properties and are naturally found in porous rocks, coral reefs, and bones. However, it is challenging to manufacture and replicate these hierarchical structures and control the porosity at multiple scales. The proposed solution involves using additive manufacturing to produce large-scale porosity (>100 µm) while tuning the microporosity (<100 µm) by other technics. Two strategies will be compared: direct (3D printing of a ceramic suspension) and indirect (casting the ceramic suspension in a sacrificial template mold produced by 3D printing). The project activities will comprise the formulation and characterization of the ceramic suspensions (rheology and photosensitive parameters), the additive manufacturing and casting of hierarchical porous samples, the optimization of post-processing (cleaning, debinding, and sintering), the characterization of printed and casted parts (mechanical properties, crystalline phases, density, and porosity). The capability of the proposed manufacturing process will be validated for two applications: artificial carbonate rocks and bone scaffolds. If the proposed solution is successful, it will result in a significant advance in experimental petrophysics as no previous studies have been able to produce carbonate rock replicas with tunable hierarchical porosity.