Ricerc@Sapienza

The use of dispersions of poly(vinyl alcohol) PVA and detonation nanodiamond (DND) as novel inks for 3D printing
of variously shaped objects using a layer-by-layer additive manufacturingmethod is reported. In parallelwith
the nanocomposites preparation, we designed a 3D printing apparatus and settled protocols for the shaping of
hybrid materials, choosing PVA-DND inks as a model system to test the performances of the 3D apparatus.
Along with material design and preparation, we discuss the main factors influencing the quality of the final

Ablative materials represent a traditional approach to thermal protection adopted to protect re-entry space vehicles from the severe heating encountered during hypersonic flight through planet or Earth atmosphere. In this paper low density carbon-phenolic ablative materials were modified with addition of ZrO2 nanoparticles with the aim of improving the mechanical properties and the ablation resistance. It is known that an uneven distribution of nano-reinforcement could be responsible for a drastic limitation of potential beneficial effects.