Material Extrusion Printing of Poly(Acrylonitrile‐Styrene‐Acrylate) and Poly(Acrylonitrile‐Butadiene‐Styrene) Structures Reinforced with Poly(Phenylene Oxide) Additives for Improved Thermomechanical Properties and their Surface Analysis by Time‐of‐Fl

Fused filament fabrication offers the ability to 3D print complex geometries made from plastic filament materials; however, these parts are mechanically outperformed by parts created by traditional fabrication methods. To overcome this challenge, a high‐performance polymer poly(2,6‐dimethyl‐1,4‐phenylene oxide) (PPO) is incorporated as an additive into two common engineering thermoplastics, poly(acrylonitrile‐styrene‐acrylate) (ASA) and poly(acrylonitrile‐butadiene‐styrene) (ABS). Structures printed from these polymer blends are more mechanically robust compared to those prepared from the parent polymers, with low loading levels (1–5 wt%) of PPO improving the elastic strength by up to ≈30% relative to the parent terpolymers. Even at higher loading levels (10 and 20 wt% PPO), there is no evidence of additive aggregation in the model thin films, which is supported by compositional analysis of the copolymers and chemical analysis via time‐of‐flight secondary ion mass spectrometry. The enhancements in mechanical properties of ASA and ABS blends appear to be a consequence of homogeneous incorporation of the PPO additive. This work explores expanding materials‐property space using miscible blends of engineering thermoplastics to improve mechanical performance as a general approach to overcoming challenges with parts created by melt‐based material extrusion printing.