Rubber Seed Oil-Based UV-Curable Polyurethane Acrylate Resins for Digital Light Processing (DLP) 3D Printing.

Yun Hu,Guoqiang Zhu,Rongrong An,Qianqian Shang,Lihong Hu,Yonghong Zhou,Jinshuai Zhang,Xixi Yu,Jia Huang,Chengguo Liu

doi:10.3390/molecules26185455

Abstract

Novel UV-curable polyurethane acrylate (PUA) resins were developed from rubber seed oil (RSO). Firstly, hydroxylated rubber seed oil (HRSO) was prepared via an alcoholysis reaction of RSO with glycerol, and then HRSO was reacted with isophorone diisocyanate (IPDI) and hydroxyethyl acrylate (HEA) to produce the RSO-based PUA (RSO-PUA) oligomer. FT-IR and 1H NMR spectra collectively revealed that the obtained RSO-PUA was successfully synthesized, and the calculated C=C functionality of oligomer was 2.27 per fatty acid. Subsequently, a series of UV-curable resins were prepared and their ultimate properties, as well as UV-curing kinetics, were investigated. Notably, the UV-cured materials with 40% trimethylolpropane triacrylate (TMPTA) displayed a tensile strength of 11.7 MPa, an adhesion of 2 grade, a pencil hardness of 3H, a flexibility of 2 mm, and a glass transition temperature up to 109.4 °C. Finally, the optimal resin was used for digital light processing (DLP) 3D printing. The critical exposure energy of RSO-PUA (15.20 mJ/cm2) was lower than a commercial resin. In general, this work offered a simple method to prepare woody plant oil-based high-performance PUA resins that could be applied in the 3D printing industry.

Highlights

Ultraviolet (UV)-curable technology is an instantaneous and effective method for converting liquid ingredients into a crosslinked solid polymer network [1]
These results indicated that biobased UV-curable polyurethane acrylate (PUA) materials exhibited great potential to replace the petroleum-based ones
The chemical structures of the rubber seed oil (RSO)-based intermediate and final product were characterized by FT-IR and 1 H NMR

Summary

Introduction

Ultraviolet (UV)-curable technology is an instantaneous and effective method for converting liquid ingredients into a crosslinked solid polymer network [1]. UV-curable materials have gained widespread attention for the advantages of high curing efficiency, low energy consumption, low solvent emission, low costs, and moderate curing condition. They are widely used in the fields of coatings, adhesives, and high value-added products [2,3]. Most of the UV-curable raw materials were prepared from petrochemical products. For the purposes of reducing the consumption of fossil feedstock and endowing materials with biocompatible and biodegradable properties, various resources of renewable building blocks [5,6,7], including plant oil [8,9,10,11], natural phenolic [12,13,14,15,16,17], natural acid [2,18,19,20,21], and so forth [1,22,23,24], have been employed as starting materials to prepare UV-curable materials [25]

Methods

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Discussion

Conclusion