Filling and wear behaviors of micro-molded parts made with nanomaterials

Microinjection molding technology and its various modifications represent established processes for micro-molded parts with high accuracy under large scale production. Recently, the use of plastic material with added reinforced fillers has become a potential alternative approach due to its high strength and the ease of batch fabrication. This paper investigates the moldability and wear properties of a polymer with added nanoceramic materials during microinjection molding. In this study, parts with micro-features were successfully manufactured using a custom-made injection machine. The results show that the polymer with added nanomaterials effectively increased the hardness achieved. In addition, a nanoceramic material, such as ZnO, improved wear resistance by 70% when nanoparticles were uniformly dispersed in the polymer and a suitable surfactant solvent was chosen. However, wear resistance decreased significantly if the nanoparticles were not processed well and a proper surfactant solvent was not chosen. The results also show that high hardness did not result in reinforced parts with high wear resistance.