Preparation of fully dense boron carbide ceramics by Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF)

Boron carbide is the third hardest material known, with a high melting point (2450 °C) and poor sintering ability. Therefore, boron carbide is a challenging material for shaping by conventional processing routes and can still be considered as unsuitable for commercial production of ceramics parts by additive manufacturing technologies. This work reports the first successful preparation of boron carbide ceramics fabricated by fused filament fabrication from a newly developed composite filament containing 65 wt% of micron-sized boron carbide powder dispersed in a thermoplastic binder. A commercial FFF desktop printer with a 0.40 mm nozzle was used for manufacturing of complex-shaped green bodies. Almost fully dense boron carbide ceramics with printed parts sized up to 4 centimeters and relative density higher than 96% after sintering were prepared. The DTA/TG analysis of composite filament and heat microscopy technique were used to set the debinding temperature program with critical temperature at 140 °C, due to the thermal decomposition of the binder. Microstructure SEM images after sintering showed excellent material homogeneity, while micro-CT images showed very well retained experimental shapes of collimator-like printed grids. The x-ray diffraction proved the presence of boron carbide phase with the free carbon phase at the level of about 1 wt% without significant influence on the measured hardness value of 29.88 ± 1.27 GPa.