Research Progress and Prospects of Non-oxide Ceramic in Stereolithography Additive Manufacturing

At present, stereolithography 3D printing technology is widely used in ceramic additive manufacturing because of its high printing accuracy. Among them, the stereolithography ceramic slurry of non-oxide ceramics such as silicon carbide, silicon nitride, etc., has problems such as poor dispersion stability and low curing layer thickness because the incident light is difficult to penetrate and produce light curing reaction for printing high-solid-loading slurry. This is all because the refractive index and optical absorbance of the non-oxide ceramic printing material powder are relatively high. Therefore, printing and molding of high-solid-content non-oxide ceramics have become main challenges in stereolithography 3D printing, and the technology has attracted a large number of researchers to study its light-curing mechanism, powder control and other mechanisms. This paper systematically summarizes the research works of several non-oxide ceramics such as light-curing slurry preparation, light-curing molding, organic matter removal, and sintering densification. It also analyzes and discusses several methods of adjusting composition of photosensitive resin and modifying ceramic powder, and proposes innovative solutions to improve the slurry performance of non-oxide ceramics, optimize its light-curing printing, repair its densification defects and improve its performance. And the ultimate goal is to promote the advancement of high-precision preparation technology for light-curing additive manufacturing of large-size, complex-structure non-oxide ceramic parts.