Development of Innovative Thermoplastic Foam Materials Using Two Additive Manufacturing Technologies for Application in Evaporative Cooling Systems

Evaporative cooling systems have emerged as low-energy consumption alternatives to traditional vapor compression systems for building air conditioning. This study explored the feasibility of utilizing polymeric foamed materials produced through additive manufacturing as wetting materials in evaporative cooling systems. Specifically, two different commercial polylactic acid filaments, each containing a percentage of a chemical blowing agent, were studied. Experiments were designed to evaluate the influence of critical process parameters (line width, flow rate, speed, and layer height) on the performance of the resulting foamed materials in terms of evaporative cooling by conducting water absorption, capillarity, porosity, and wettability tests. Considering that high water absorption, capillarity, and porosity, coupled with an intermediate contact angle, are advantageous for evaporative cooling effectiveness, a low flow rate was found to be the most important parameter to improve these properties’ values. The results showed that the appropriate combination of polymer and process parameters allowed the production of foamed polymer-based materials processed by additive manufacturing technology with optimal performance.