Reactive Laser Additive Manufacturing of Hierarchically Structured Aerogels
Abstract
ABSTRACT As demands for sustainable and scalable energy materials manufacturing accelerate, additive manufacturing (AM) remains largely limited to passive shaping of predefined precursors. Here, we introduce reactive laser AM, in which precursor composition is designed to transform the printing step itself into a chemically active stage of materials synthesis. Incorporating eutectic alkali halide salts into protein‐based powders converts localized laser heating into transient reaction environments that drive vapor‐phase chemistry, surface etching, and in situ hierarchical growth without external reagents or solvents. This internally activated reactivity enables the rapid formation of graphitic aerogel monoliths with multilevel architecture—macroporous frameworks decorated with microtubular arrays and nanoscale features—within seconds in a single process. As energy storage electrodes, these hierarchically structured aerogels exhibit a tenfold enhancement in gravimetric capacitance (∼162 F g −1 ) relative to salt‐free counterparts. By engineering reactivity through feedstock design, this work reframes laser AM as a dynamic platform for reaction‐driven materials‐by‐design.
Article Details
Authors (7)
Shuichiro Hayashi
Princeton Materials Institute, Princeton University 1 , Princeton, New Jersey 08540,
Ankit Das
Princeton Materials Institute, Princeton University 1 , Princeton, New Jersey 08540,
Marco Rupp
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University 1 , 41 Olden Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08544,
Elizabeth Stump
Princeton Materials Institute Princeton University Princeton New Jersey USA
Joshua Miller
Michele L. Sarazen
Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering
Craig B. Arnold
Princeton Materials Institute, Princeton University 1 , Princeton, New Jersey 08540,