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Additive Manufactuging of Polymer-Based Nanocomposites and Composites: Progress and Prospects

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A special issue of Polymers (ISSN 2073-4360). This special issue belongs to the section "Polymer Composites and Nanocomposites".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 28 February 2026 | Viewed by 6779

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Aldobenedetto Zotti

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Institute for Polymers, Composites and Biomaterials, National Research Council of Italy, P.le Fermi, 1, 80055 Portici, NA, Italy
Interests: epoxy resin; mechanical properties; thermal properties; fiber reinforced polymers; cryogenic temperature; fracture toughness; hyperbranched polymers
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Dr. Mauro Zarrelli

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Institute of Polymers, Composites and Biomaterials, National Research Council of Italy, 80055 Portici, Italy
Interests: advanced composites; mechanical and thermo-mechanical performance; nanocomposites; manufacturing processes; residual stresses; cure kinetics; thermal stability; impact; fracture tooughness
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Prof. Dr. Aniello Riccio

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Department of Engineering, University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli, Via Roma 29, 81031 Aversa, CE, Italy
Interests: composite materials; damage tolerance; delamination; fatigue; impact damage; crashworthiness; fuselages
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Dear Colleagues,

Traditional manufacturing techniques, such as Injection Molding, Resin Transfer Molding, Compression Molding, Pultrusion, etc., are commonly used to manufacture polymer-based composites and nanocomposites; however, these techniques require large apparatus and molds, thereby making them expensive. Moreover, the production of complex and customized parts is limited by these techniques. On the contrary, additive manufacturing (AM) techniques allow complex and custom parts to be produced with budget-friendly and small apparatus. AM, which is also referred to as 3D printing, can be described as a class of techniques based on blending materials (such as thermoplastic filaments, liquid resin, and powders) by either fusion, binding, or solidification in a layer-by-layer fashion using 3D CAD modeling. AM was first demonstrated in 1980 by Kodama, who published the paper “Three-Dimensional Data Display by Automatic Preparation of a Three-Dimensional Model”; since that year, the number of publications and patents related to 3D printing has grown exponentially. Different AM processes depend on the material preparation, layer generation technique, phase change phenomenon, material type, and application requirements. Over the last decade, the use of AM processes has grown remarkably in all industrial fields, from automotive and aerospace to the electronic, food, and medical industries.

Despite significant progress in AM, obtaining advanced polymer materials such as composites and nanocomposites, i.e., materials with improved mechanical and thermal properties or tailored functional properties (such as electrical conductivity and antimicrobial properties), remains challenging.

The aim of this Special Issue is to publish original articles, critical reviews, research notes, analyses, case studies, and short communications related to progress in the 3D printing of polymer-based composites and nanocomposites. Topics of interest for this Special Issue include, but are not limited to, the following:

Three-dimensional printing processes: progress in innovative techniques for the 3D printing of polymer-based composites and nanocomposites.
Nanocomposite and composite preparation processes: novel techniques to realize nanocomposites and impregnate reinforcement fibers suitable for 3D printing processes.
Printed materials: the outcomes of using thermoset and thermoplastic nanocomposites or continuous and discontinuous fiber composites.
Forming mechanism: the modeling and simulation of 3DP technologies for polymer composites and nanocomposites.
Characterization: the study of printed materials in terms of microstructure and the properties derived from various printing parameters and reinforcement additions.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Aldobenedetto Zotti
Dr. Mauro Zarrelli
Prof. Dr. Aniello Riccio
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Polymers is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

additive manufacturing techniques
3D-printed polymer-based fiber-reinforced composites
3D-printed polymer-based nanocomposites
effect of printing manufacturing
nanocomposites and composites preparation processes

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Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

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11 pages, 1142 KB

Open AccessArticle

Probing Photoluminescence in Perovskite-Based Polymer Nanocomposite Films

by Jack Francis Renaud, Ashlyn Schlabach, Meenakshi Narayan, Evan Davies, Morgan Gillis, Jack Gugino, Nisreen Nusair, Mark P. S. Krekeler and Mithun Bhowmick

Polymers 2025, 17(17), 2317; https://doi.org/10.3390/polym17172317 - 27 Aug 2025

Viewed by 682

Abstract

Polymer nanocomposites incorporating perovskite (PV) nanoparticles have recently emerged as highly promising materials for optoelectronic and photonic devices. In this work, steady-state and time-resolved photoluminescence (PL) were performed in PV-based polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) nanocomposite films. The steady-state PL measurements revealed linearly increasing emission as excitation intensities ramped up, followed by a saturation. The optical limiting was scalable through the PV concentrations and is likely due to creation of maximum number of electron–hole (e–h) pairs in the system. The presence of a PDMS altered the multi-exponential PL decay significantly, both in terms of underlying mechanism and the associated timescales. The introduction of PDMS changed a 3-component exponential decay of PV into a 2-component mechanism and reduced the total timescale of decay from 16 ns to ~6 ns. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Additive Manufactuging of Polymer-Based Nanocomposites and Composites: Progress and Prospects)

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23 pages, 1998 KB

Open AccessArticle

Hybrid Experimental–Machine Learning Study on the Mechanical Behavior of Polymer Composite Structures Fabricated via FDM

by Osman Ulkir and Sezgin Ersoy

Polymers 2025, 17(15), 2012; https://doi.org/10.3390/polym17152012 - 23 Jul 2025

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 830

Abstract

This study explores the mechanical behavior of polymer and composite specimens fabricated using fused deposition modeling (FDM), focusing on three material configurations: acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), carbon fiber-reinforced polyphthalamide (PPA/Cf), and a sandwich-structured composite. A systematic experimental plan was developed using the Box–Behnken design (BBD) to investigate the effects of material type (MT), infill pattern (IP), and printing direction (PD) on tensile and flexural strength. Experimental results showed that the PPA/Cf material with a “Cross” IP printed “Flat” yielded the highest mechanical performance, achieving a tensile strength of 75.8 MPa and a flexural strength of 102.3 MPa. In contrast, the lowest values were observed in ABS parts with a “Grid” pattern and “Upright” orientation, recording 37.8 MPa tensile and 49.5 MPa flexural strength. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) results confirmed that all three factors significantly influenced both outputs (p < 0.001), with MT being the most dominant factor. Machine learning (ML) algorithms, Bayesian linear regression (BLR), and Gaussian process regression (GPR) were employed to predict mechanical performance. GPR achieved the best overall accuracy with R² = 0.9935 and MAPE = 11.14% for tensile strength and R² = 0.9925 and MAPE = 12.96% for flexural strength. Comparatively, the traditional BBD yielded slightly lower performance with MAPE = 13.02% and R² = 0.9895 for tensile strength. Validation tests conducted on three unseen configurations clearly demonstrated the generalization capability of the models. Based on actual vs. predicted values, the GPR yielded the lowest average prediction errors, with MAPE values of 0.54% for tensile and 0.45% for flexural strength. In comparison, BLR achieved 0.79% and 0.60%, while BBD showed significantly higher errors at 1.76% and 1.32%, respectively. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Additive Manufactuging of Polymer-Based Nanocomposites and Composites: Progress and Prospects)

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15 pages, 1643 KB

Open AccessArticle

Mechanical Properties of Fully Recyclable 3D-Printable Materials Used for Application in Patient-Specific Devices in Radiotherapy

by Antonio Jreije, Paulius Griškevičius, Neringa Keršienė, Jurgita Laurikaitienė, Rūta Nedzinskienė and Diana Adlienė

Polymers 2025, 17(14), 1946; https://doi.org/10.3390/polym17141946 - 16 Jul 2025

Viewed by 996

Abstract

The exponential growth of plastic production in the healthcare sector and the limited capacity of conventional recycling systems have created a global environmental challenge. Latest 3D printing technologies have the potential to solve this problem by enabling on-demand, localized manufacturing. This study aimed to investigate the mechanical properties of 3D-printed ABS composites with Bi₂O₃ fillers after multiple recycling and irradiation cycles to assess their suitability for creating robust, reusable supporting devices for radiotherapy. Filaments of PLA, ABS, and ABS composites enriched with 5 wt% and 10 wt% Bi₂O₃ were extruded, repeatedly recycled through shredding and re-extrusion up to ten times and irradiated to 70 Gy using a 6 MeV photon beam to simulate clinical radiotherapy conditions. In contrast to PLA, ABS demonstrated better recyclability; however, after ten recycling cycles, its tensile strength declined from 25.1 MPa to 20.9 MPa, and its Young’s modulus decreased from 2503.5 MPa to 1410.4 MPa. Incorporation of 5 wt% Bi₂O₃ into ABS significantly improved recyclability and mechanical retention. After ten recycling rounds, an ABS composite containing 5 wt% Bi₂O₃ retained tensile strength of 22.2 MPa, modulus of 1553.9 MPa, and strain at break of 14.4%. In contrast, the composite enforced with 10 wt% Bi₂O₃ showed slightly lower performance, likely due to filler agglomeration. Under irradiation, the ABS–5 wt% Bi₂O₃ composite exhibited minimal additional degradation, maintaining mechanical integrity superior to other materials. These results indicate that ABS–5 wt% Bi₂O₃ is a promising, recyclable material for durable, patient-specific devices in radiotherapy, supporting sustainability in medical manufacturing. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Additive Manufactuging of Polymer-Based Nanocomposites and Composites: Progress and Prospects)

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17 pages, 6514 KB

Open AccessArticle

Additive Manufacturing Meets Gear Mechanics: Understanding Abrasive Wear Evolution in FDM-Printed Gears

by Robert Ciobanu, George Arhip, Octavian Donțu, Ciprian Ion Rizescu and Bogdan Grămescu

Polymers 2025, 17(13), 1810; https://doi.org/10.3390/polym17131810 - 29 Jun 2025

Viewed by 759

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of the abrasive wear influence on the tooth flank geometry of plastic gear wheels, emphasizing the contribution of tooth stiffness to the observed changes. The study examined gear wheels made from polylactic acid (PLA) with wall thicknesses of 0.6 mm, 1.0 mm and 2.4 mm, manufactured using FDM technology. A standard layer height of 0.2 mm was chosen as it offers a balance between good precision and reasonable printing times. The PLA gear wheels were tested for wear in a meshing configuration with a metallic reference gear. The results indicate that wear intensity increases as tooth stiffness decreases, suggesting an inverse proportionality between abrasive wear and tooth stiffness. In all tested cases, the tooth tip was more affected by abrasive wear compared to the rest of the profile. The analysis establishes that sliding velocity has the greatest influence on the abrasive wear characteristics of the evaluated gears. Based on experimental findings, a mathematical model was developed for simulating abrasive wear in plastic gears, with scalability across various manufacturing technologies. For PLA gears, both experimental and simulated data confirm that full tooth infill is essential for functional durability. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Additive Manufactuging of Polymer-Based Nanocomposites and Composites: Progress and Prospects)

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12 pages, 638 KB

Open AccessCommunication

Selected Properties of a TPS/PA12 Composite Material Produced in a Two-Stage Method

by Ewa Tomaszewska-Ciosk, Ewa Zdybel, Małgorzata Kapelko-Żeberska and Beata Anwajler

Polymers 2025, 17(11), 1517; https://doi.org/10.3390/polym17111517 - 29 May 2025

Viewed by 599

Abstract

The world economy is struggling with the increasing pollution of the natural environment with non-biodegradable synthetic polymers produced from petroleum products. This fact has prompted research on the use of natural renewable polymers. Starch is one of the polymers that has already been used as an additive to synthetic polymers; however, its use is associated with a problem arising from the incompatibility of hydrophilic starch with hydrophobic synthetic polymers. For these reasons, other authors have not used more than 20% of the starch component in synthetic materials. In this work, a research hypothesis was put forward that the starch content can be increased in the polymer material. Pre-extrusion was used before the final material molding process. Pre-extrusion improved the phase dispersion of the synthetic polymer blended with starch. To produce the molds, the polyamide and starch blends were subjected to the processes of extrusion, milling, and pressing. The molded samples containing polyamide and starch were obtained with a starch component content of 50, 70, and 90%. The obtained homogeneous material was determined in terms of its water resistance and mechanical properties. The test results showed that increasing the starch content in the produced material, increased its susceptibility to water, and worsened its strength properties. However, these negative effects were not as large as expected, and in some cases were even statistically insignificant. The addition of 70% of the starch component allowed for the production of a composite material with satisfactory mechanical properties. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Additive Manufactuging of Polymer-Based Nanocomposites and Composites: Progress and Prospects)

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34 pages, 11753 KB

Open AccessReview

Fused Deposition Modeling of Polymer Composites: Development, Properties and Applications

by Aldobenedetto Zotti, Teresa Paduano, Francesco Napolitano, Simona Zuppolini, Mauro Zarrelli and Anna Borriello

Polymers 2025, 17(8), 1054; https://doi.org/10.3390/polym17081054 - 14 Apr 2025

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2486

Abstract

This review summarizes recent research advancements in thermoplastic composites used in Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) processes. Since its development in 1988, FDM has emerged as one of the primary emerging technologies of Industry 4.0, receiving attention in fields such as industrial manufacturing, automotive, aerospace, and others, particularly for rapid prototyping and customization. The intention is to make available a guideline for 3D printing researchers, analyzing the properties and performance characteristics of different polymers and polymeric composites. The review analysis covers various reinforcing agents, including particles/nanoparticles, short fibers, and long fibers, identifying critical parameters of the FDM process which affect printed part quality, integrity and final geometry. Major attention is devoted to the different techniques employed for composite filament fabrication, mostly for structural elements and parts. An extensive overview of various FDM composites and fiber-reinforced composites by polymer matrices such as PLA, ABS, and PEEK is presented, with their mechanical and thermal properties reported for specific applications. Current challenges and prospective future research directions are also outlined, mainly focusing on the enhancement of material performance and sustainability. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Additive Manufactuging of Polymer-Based Nanocomposites and Composites: Progress and Prospects)

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