Fiber-based additive manufacturing technology

Fiber-based additive manufacturing technology for open porous impiants with complex geometries... 

Solubility of the three commercial polysulfones follows the order PSF > PES > PPSF. At room temperature, all three of these polysulfones as well as the vast majority of other aromatic sulfone-based polymers can be readily dissolved in a handful of highly polar solvents to form stable solutions. These powerful solvents include NMP, DMAc, pyridine, and aniline. 1,1,2-Trichloroethane and 1,1,2,2-tetrachloroethane are also suitable solvents but are less desirable because of their potentially harmful health effects. In addition to being soluble in the aforementioned list, PSF is also readily soluble in a host of less polar solvents by virtue of its lower solubility parameter. These solvents include tetrahydrofuran (THF), 1,4 dioxane, chloroform, dichloromethane, and chlorobenzene. The relatively broad solubility characteristics of PSF have been key in the development of solution-based hollow-fiber spinning processes in the manufacture of polysulfone asymmetric membranes (see Membrane Technology). The solvent list for PES and PPSF is short because of the propensity of these polymers to undergo solvent-induced crystallization in many solvents. When the PES structure contains a small proportion of a second bisphenol comonomer, as in the case of RADEL A (British Petroleum) polyethersulfone, solution stability is much improved over that of PES homopolymer. 

---