Mechanically tunable resins based on acrylate-based resin for digital light processing (DLP) 3D printing

Until now, only a few materials are available for additive manufacturing technologies that employ photopolymerization, such as stereolithography (SLA) and digital light processing (DLP) 3D printing systems. This study investigates a newly formulated resins as an alternative 3D printing materials with tunable mechanical properties to expand the potential applications of advanced engineering products such as wearable devices and small reactors. A commercial acrylate-based resin was selected as a standard resin (STD). The resin was formulated by combining various volume ratios of a low-cost polypropylene glycol (PPG) having various molecular weights (400, 1000, and 2000 g/mol) with the STD resin. The printability of the formulated resins was optimized using the digital light processing (DLP) 3D printing technique. The effects of the PPG contents on the properties of the printed parts were studied, including printability, thermal properties, mechanical properties, and thermo-mechanical properties. As a result, the formulated resins with 5–30%vol of PPG could be printed while higher PPG content led to print failure. Results suggest that increasing the PPG contents reduced the dimensional accuracy of the printed parts and decreased the mechanical properties, including the flexural strength, flexural modulus, impact strength, hardness, and elastic modulus. interestingly, at small loading, 5%vol, the mechanical performance of the printed specimens was successfully enhanced. These results are intriguing to use a tunable mechanical acrylate-based resin for a specific application such as a microreactor.