Scalable Production of High-Strength Recycled Noniridescent Structural Color Models via Twin-Screw Extrusion and 3D Printing

The integration of 3D printing into the manufacture of recycled structural color components presents a compelling alternative to conventional dyes and pigments. This paper proposes a processing strategy combining colloidal nanosphere self-assembly, twin-screw extrusion, and FDM 3D printing to rapidly produce noniridescent structural color components. The twin-screw extrusion mixes nanospheres with resin by using thermal shear forces to arrange nanospheres uniformly, creating structural color filaments (SCFs) for 3D printing. Using FDM 3D printing, various structural color patterns and three-dimensional structural color models (SCMs) are successfully fabricated. The results demonstrate that colloidal nanospheres can achieve regular arrangement within seconds under thermal shear, with the extruded filaments and printed models exhibiting pronounced noniridescent structural colors on a black substrate. Furthermore, SCFs and 3D-printed SCMs demonstrate excellent mechanical properties, with tensile strengths reaching 20.1 and 11.5 MPa, respectively. Moreover, this technology also features advantages such as material recyclability, low cost, low energy consumption, and flexibility in customization flexibility. These findings provide valuable insights into the integration of photonic crystals with 3D printing, underscoring the extensive application potential of noniridescent structural color materials in the production of complex patterns and functional components.