Sajadi, Seyed MohammadVásárhelyi, LíviaMousavi, RezaRahmati, Amir HosseinKónya, ZoltánKukovecz, ÁkosArif, TaibFilleter, TobinVajtai, RobertBoul, PeterPang, ZhenqianLi, TengTiwary, Chandra SekharRahman, Muhammad M.Ajayan, Pulickel M.2021-07-302021-07-302021Sajadi, Seyed Mohammad, Vásárhelyi, Lívia, Mousavi, Reza, et al.. "Damage-tolerant 3D-printed ceramics via conformal coating." <i>Science Advances,</i> 7, no. 28 (2021) AAAS: https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abc5028.https://hdl.handle.net/1911/111044Ceramic materials, despite their high strength and modulus, are limited in many structural applications due to inherent brittleness and low toughness. Nevertheless, ceramic-based structures, in nature, overcome this limitation using bottom-up complex hierarchical assembly of hard ceramic and soft polymer, where ceramics are packaged with tiny fraction of polymers in an internalized fashion. Here, we propose a far simpler approach of entirely externalizing the soft phase via conformal polymer coating over architected ceramic structures, leading to damage tolerance. Architected structures are printed using silica-filled preceramic polymer, pyrolyzed to stabilize the ceramic scaffolds, and then dip-coated conformally with a thin, flexible epoxy polymer. The polymer-coated architected structures show multifold improvement in compressive strength and toughness while resisting catastrophic failure through a considerable delay of the damage propagation. This surface modification approach allows a simple strategy to build complex ceramic parts that are far more damage-tolerant than their traditional counterparts. Conformal polymer coating leads to damage-tolerant architected ceramic structures with high strength and toughness. Conformal polymer coating leads to damage-tolerant architected ceramic structures with high strength and toughness.engDistributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 4.0Journal articleeabc5028-fullhttps://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abc5028