3D-Printable ABS Blends with Improved Scratch Resistance and Balanced Mechanical Performance

Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) is one of the most important materials utilized by fused deposition modeling (FDM) 3D printing. In this work, we prepared a series of 3D-printable ABS-based materials with improved scratch resistance and balanced mechanical performance via a simple blending strategy. The scratch resistant performance, mechanical strength, melt flow rate, hardness, transmittance, and surface gloss of ABS were improved simultaneously by adding 30 mass portion of poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA). Further addition of a small amount of methacrylate butadiene styrene (MBS), a kind of core shell rubber modifier with high toughening efficiency, improved the toughness of ABS/PMMA effectively and hardly influenced the scratch resistance and optical properties of ABS/PMMA. This ABS/PMMA/MBS blend has the potential for large-scaled fabrication and can be developed as a new category of thermoplastic polymer material specially used for FDM 3D printing.