Recent progress in functionalized plastic 3D printing in creation of metallized architectures

Metallized surfaces, structures are of demand by many industries, however, with the demand for materials with improved properties, cost effectiveness polymers have gained exponential attention. Thus, researchers have focused on metallization of polymers to overcome the drawbacks of polymers. Over the past few decades, the research focus has evolved from metal patterning on 2D polymer substrates to additive manufacturing-based metal patterning and metallization of 3D complex structures to build smarter devices. With the growing needs, metal patterning on non-3D printed polymeric substrates have imposed some limitations to the imagination. 3D polymer structures come to light in this scenario with selective or non-selective metallization of these structures to create complex metallized structures. This work is a review of such recent studies where metallization of polymeric structures has been reported for both non-3D printed and 3D printed structures within last six years. The paper discusses the materials of interest for the 3D printing, metallization techniques, metal patterning on non-3D printed polymeric substrates and highlighting their applications and limitations when it comes to realization of 3D structures and moving on to the selective or non-selective metallization of 3D printed complex structures highlighting the mechanical, optical, and surface property enhancement and their extensive applications.