Dear Colleagues,

3D printing technology builds three-dimensional objects from a computer-aided design model by successively adding material layer-by-layer. The advantages of additive manufacturing technology include unlimited shapes, better quality, and the relatively fast and cost-effective process compared to other methods. There are various 3D printing processes, which include material extrusion (e.g., fused deposition modelling (FDM) or fused filament fabrication (FFF)), light polymerization such as continuous liquid interface production (CLIP), powder bed such as selective laser sintering (SLS), bio-plotting, and others. Polymers are usually involved in these processes and often do not have any other properties than their resulting 3D structures. Composite polymers are composed of more than one component—other than at least one polymer—and can provide tailored properties to the final materials such as reinforcement, sensing, actuation, chemical, physical, biological, and others. Examples of composite polymers include at least a mixture of a polymer with another polymer or copolymers, inorganic or organic materials, metals, and others. Composite polymers are increasingly playing a significant role in many technologies, including bio-robotics, soft-robotics, growing robots, sensors, actuators, pollution remediation, medical devices, aerospace, transportation, and others. It is of particular interest to create such purpose-serving composite polymers and materials (either ex-situ or in-situ) to be used in 3D printing technologies.

Dr. Ioannis Liakos
Guest Editor

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• Composite polymers for 3D printing
• Thermoplastic composite filaments
• Additive manufacturing
• Soft-robotics
• Sensors
• Actuators
• Pollution detection and remediation