Patent — available for licensing
Rapid Aerogel Prototyping Using 3D Printing
A NASA invention available to explore as a licensing opportunity.
About this technology
Overview
Inventors at NASA's Glenn Research Center have developed a novel rapid prototyping methodology for the additive manufacturing of polymer aerogels through 3D printing within a viscous sacrificial support medium. This approach overcomes longstanding limitations associated with the processing of ultra–low-density polymer networks by decoupling geometric fidelity from material rheology and gravitational stability during fabrication. By directly depositing a polyimide precursor into a yield-stress, optically transparent sacrificial medium, complex three-dimensional architectures are formed with precise spatial control while preventing structural collapse, sagging, or filament coalescence during printing. This rapid prototyping technique can be used with a variety of underlying polymer architectures for applications in thermal insulation, acoustic barriers, and vibration mitigation, among others. A polymer aerogel is an ultra-lightweight, highly porous solid made from polymer networks with a nanoscale structure. Following solvent removal, the resulting aerogel provides exceptional thermal insulation and tunable mechanical and functional properties for advanced engineering applications. Conventionally, aerogels are fabricated using a molding process limiting the complexity of aerogel geometries due to the available mold designs. This limitation hinders the rapid prototyping of complex, application-specific aerogel structures with tailored geometries, such as conformal shapes around existing components, which in turn limits the rate of iterative design and innovation.