Printing multifunctional high-performance polymer parts via the hybridization of high temperature material extrusion thermal and chemical reactive bonding

Direct fabrication of multifunctional, high-performance components integrating structural dielectric and conductive materials remains a key challenge in advanced manufacturing. Additive manufacturing (AM) enables embedding functional elements layer-by-layer into structural parts. Hybrid material extrusion (MEX) systems have combined thermal reaction bonding (MEX-TRB, or fused filament fabrication, FFF) and chemical reaction bonding (MEX-CRB, or direct ink writing, DIW) modalities within the same system to directly produce multifunctional parts. However, these systems have been limited to depositing conductive traces within commodity polymers (e.g., PLA, ABS, PETG) at ambient conditions to prevent premature ink curing. These polymers lack the thermal stability to withstand high-performance ink sintering temperatures (often >250 °C), limiting conductivity of the dispensed functional inks and resulting applications.This work introduces a novel hybrid MEX-CRB/MEX-TRB system with an actively cooled MEX-CRB head to prevent ink curing while operating in chamber temperatures up to 110 °C, enabling the printing of high-performance polymers. In-situ characterization using embedded thermocouples confirmed that the cooling system maintains ink below critical curing thresholds. Conductivity measurements demonstrated successful in-situ sintering and conductive network formation of silver conductive traces within the heated chamber. Polyphenylene sulfide (PPS) parts with embedded silver traces were fabricated, leveraging the chamber for both polymer printing and trace sintering. Compared to traditional hybrid approaches requiring part shuttling between modalities, this integrated system reduces interlayer cooling and improves polymer interlayer adhesion. These results show that the high-temperature hybrid MEX system effectively balances conflicting thermal requirements of high-performance polymers and conductive inks, enabling efficient multimodality printing for advanced electrical applications.