Designing Wavelength-Specific Visible Light Photocurable Resins
Abstract
The proposed research aims to develop new formulations and strategies to fabricate multi-material objects from a single resin by identifying orthogonal photochemical pathways that activate under different wavelengths of light. This process will allow for the rapid on-demand production of objects with predefined and spatially resolved chemical and mechanical properties that will overcome limitations and challenges in state-of-the-art 3D printing, including single material/property objects, slow build rates, and mechanical failure at interfaces. These advances would provide an avenue towards strong, lightweight, and resilient multi-material polymeric objects to improve protection, mobility, and portability in the field over current structures, enabling capabilities such as shock reduction and autonomous healing after physical damage. Initial experiments will identify an efficient blue-light photocatalytic system (PC1) for cationic curing, followed by a red-light photocatalytic system (PC2) for radical curing. Of significance will be the unique integration of opaquing agents (OAs) (e.g., dyes / pigments) that will mediate photocatalysis by differentiating between distinct wavelengths of light and define the z-dimension (or depth) of cure. The effect of various OAs on the photosensitivity of visible light curable resins will be examined using real time Fourier transform infrared (RT-FTIR) spectroscopy. Furthermore, the compatibility of PC1 and PC2 in a single resin formulation and scalability of this process will be studied.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- May 20, 2019
- Source ID
- W911NF1910310
Entities
People
- Zachariah A Page
Organizations
- Army Contracting Command
- United States Army
- University of Texas at Austin