AccScience Publishing / MSAM / Volume 4 / Issue 4 / DOI: 10.36922/MSAM025090008
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ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE

Elaboration of complex aluminum nitride parts by binder jetting: Optimization of printing parameters and powder characteristics

Fanny Pruvost1 ,  Sophie Guillemet-Fritsch1* ,  Alexia Mortagne-Coderch1 ,  Yohann Thimont1 ,  Régis Delsol2 ,  Xavier Clausse3 ,  Lionel Presmanes1
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1 CIRIMAT, Université Toulouse, Toulouse INP, CNRS, 118 Route de Narbonne, CEDEX 9, 31062 Toulouse, France
2 CEA Tech Occitanie, 51 Rue Innovat, Labege, France
3 Toyal Europe, Route de Lescun, Accous, France
MSAM 2025, 4(4), 025090008 https://doi.org/10.36922/MSAM025090008
Received: 25 February 2025 | Accepted: 26 March 2025 | Published online: 9 September 2025
© 2025 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
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Abstract

Aluminum nitride (AlN) is a promising material for heat sinks and power electronics substrates due to its high thermal conductivity, electrical insulation, high mechanical strength, and low thermal expansion. At present, there is a significant demand for the development of ceramics with complex geometries that can achieve previously unmatched properties, and additive manufacturing (AM) techniques are well-suited to meet these challenges. In this study, we chose the binder jetting (BJ) technology and investigated the influence of printing parameters and powder characteristics on AlN part quality and densification. Different strategies were used to enhance densification: employing multimodal powders and adding Yttrium oxide (Y2O3) to improve the shrinkage, and optimizing the printing parameters. Multimodal powder was prepared using two AlN powders (D50 ~14.7 μm and 2.2 μm) at varying fine powder ratios. After sintering at 1900°C, monoclinic yttrium aluminum monoclinic and perovskite yttrium aluminum perovskite phases formed alongside AlN and Y2O3. The highest achieved densification, 64.2%, set a new record for BJ-printed AlN. This study demonstrates the feasibility of BJ for AlN ceramics and underscores the crucial role of powder selection and AM process parameters optimization.

Graphical abstract
Keywords
Ceramics
Additive manufacturing
Aluminum nitride
Binder jetting
Multimodal mixture
Funding
The PhD scholarship was used for the work of this research and the author who received it was Fanny Pruvost. This research was funded by the “Plateformes Régionales de Recherche et d’Innovation (PRRI)” program of the Occitanie Region under the project “3D Camp—3D Ceramic Additive Manufacturing & Multimaterials Platform.”
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have influenced the work reported in this paper.
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Materials Science in Additive Manufacturing, Electronic ISSN: 2810-9635 Published by AccScience Publishing
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