Preliminary investigation on plasma electrolytic polishing of microfluidic platform produced by selective laser melting

The inherent issue of additively manufactured metallic parts is in their high surface roughness which hinders technology’s applicability for microproduct production. Usually, post-processing is required. Plasma electrolytic Polishing (PeP) is a promising technology which could tackle aforementioned challenges. In this paper, an experimental investigation on improving the quality of metallic microfluidic platforms, printed with selective laser melting (SLM), by applying PeP post-treatment is presented. The results show that overall surface roughness was significantly reduced. Furthermore, the artefacts of SLM technology caused by partial melting and agglomeration of powder at the outside of the melt pool were consistently removed. However, despite the quality improvement due PeP further enhancements of the process chain are necessary to render these microfluidic platforms functional