Inorganic Filtration Medium With Intermeshing Paths to Reduce Voids
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing methods for manufacturing porous monolithic inorganic supports for filtration membranes require multiple sintering operations, involve organic binders that burn during sintering, and result in voids that reduce mechanical resistance and channel quality, especially in non-rectilinear channels.
Innovation Solution
A 3D printing method using a movable extrusion head to deposit material in a controlled manner, creating rounded perimeter reliefs and avoiding voids by overlapping and crossing paths, ensuring a porous structure with controlled dimensions and turbulence-inducing channels.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Strength
If conventional extrusion and sintering methods are used to manufacture porous supports, then the support can be produced with required strength and porous texture, but multiple sintering operations are required and organic binders burn completely during sintering, complicating the process
Solution Approach 1:
The patent removes organic binders from the inorganic composition entirely, replacing them with inorganic filler materials. This extraction of the harmful organic component eliminates the need for binder combustion during sintering, thereby reducing the number of sintering operations required while maintaining mechanical strength through the inorganic filler framework
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the chemical composition parameters by formulating an inorganic composition containing inorganic binder and inorganic filler materials instead of organic binders. This parameter change in material composition allows the support to achieve required mechanical strength through sintering without the complexity of organic binder combustion cycles
2Strength
If powder bed deposition technique is used to prepare filtration membranes, then mechanically resistant supports suitable for tangential filtration can be obtained, but the fluidity of powder must be adjusted and unconsolidated powder removal is tricky, long and expensive
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts and eliminates the unconsolidated powder removal step by using an extrusion-based additive manufacturing approach. Instead of depositing powder beds that require subsequent removal of unconsolidated material, the invention directly extrudes consolidated inorganic material layer by layer, building the support structure without generating removable unconsolidated powder
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces the powder bed deposition mechanical system with an extrusion-based material deposition system. The extrusion head directly deposits and consolidates inorganic material in the desired shape, substituting the multi-step powder bed process with a continuous extrusion process that eliminates the time-consuming powder removal step
3Adaptability or versatility
If cords of material are deposited in vertical stacks to form layers, then the structure can be built from digital 3D model, but voids of material greater than pore size are created that reduce mechanical resistance
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by using computational algorithms to pre-calculate and optimize the extrusion path before manufacturing. The path planning algorithm determines the precise trajectory and deposition pattern that ensures complete wall filling without voids, while maintaining the adaptability to create complex non-rectilinear channel shapes from digital 3D models
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an intermediary computational path planning system that mediates between the digital 3D model and the physical extrusion process. This intermediary algorithm generates optimized deposition paths that ensure complete material coverage and eliminate voids, bridging the gap between design flexibility and structural integrity
4Strength
If staggered pattern deposition is used to avoid voids, then some empty spaces are reduced, but the quality of lateral surfaces deteriorates and gaps lead to collapse of upper layer material deposit
Solution Approach 1:
The patent uses preliminary computational path optimization to determine the precise extrusion trajectory that maintains lateral surface quality. The algorithm calculates optimal deposition patterns that ensure each layer is properly supported by the previous layer, preventing collapse while avoiding void formation, thus maintaining both structural integrity and surface quality
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The method produces a mechanically resistant, porous support with controlled porosity and channel dimensions, reducing pressure losses and enhancing filtration efficiency.
Implementation Method 1
An inorganic composition emerges from the extrusion head in the form of a ribbon of material or cord making it possible to build, from a digital 3D model, a raw, manipulable three-dimensional structure
Implementation Method 2
The porous support is prepared by a technique proceeding by addition of material... The raw, manipulable three-dimensional structure is then subjected to a sintering step
Implementation Method 3
rounded perimeter reliefs on the wall of at least one circulation channel, participating in the generation of turbulence
Data Source
Figure 1A~1C
Figure 1D~2A
Figure 2B
AI summary
The invention relates to a method for producing a porous monolithic inorganic medium (1) using a 3D printing machine comprising at least one extruder head (6) mounted so as to be moveable in space, the method consisting in: - driving the extruder head along a numerical trajectory so that: * for a path with overlap, the material being deposited partially overlaps at least one edge of a previously deposited deposit of material by a portion of overlapping material within its thickness and whose thickness is strictly less than the nominal height (e) so as to avoid gaps between the rounded edges of the deposit of material currently being deposited and those of the previously deposited deposit of material; * for a path with intersection, the material currently being deposited intersects with at least one previously deposited deposit of material that completely overlaps with the previously deposited deposit of material by a portion of overlapping material within its thickness and whose thickness is strictly less than the nominal height (e).