A Bio-Based Resin for a Multi-Scale Optical 3D Printing

Abstract

Materials obtained from renewable sources are emerging to replace the starting materials of petroleumderived plastics. They offer easy processing, fulfill technological, functional and durability requirements at the same time ensuring increased bio-compatibility, recycling, and eventually lower cost. On the other hand, optical 3D printing (O3DP) is a rapid prototyping tool (and an additive manufacturing technique) being developed as a choice for efficient and low waste production method, yet currently associated with mainly petroleum-derived resins. Here we employ a single bio-based resin derived from soy beans, suitable for O3DP in the scales from nano-to macro-dimensions, which can be processed even without the addition of photoinitiator. The approach is validated using both state-of-the art laser nanolithography setup as well as a widespread table-top 3D printer-sub-micrometer accuracy 3D objects are fabricated reproducibly. Additionally, chess-like figures are made in an industrial line commercially delivering small batch production services. Such concept is believed to make a breakthrough in rapid prototyping by switching the focus of O3DP to bio-based resins instead of being restricted to conventional petroleum-derived photopolymers. Bio-based polymers are emerging as replacement for petroleum-derived polymers. The growth of the production and market is 2.05 Mtons of bio-plastics 1 and 700 bilion Euros in Europe only 2. The main advantages of bio-based plastic products compared to the conventional plastics are the preservation of fossil resources by using bio-mass which is a renewable resource and provision of the unique potential of carbon neutrality, as well as bio-degradability of the certain types of bio-plastics which offers additional means of recovery at the end of a product's life 3. The spectrum of bio-based plastics usage varies from nanocomposites 4-8 and films 9-11 to adsorbents 12-14. Vegetable oils are potential starting materials for the preparation of polymers due to their ready availability, inherent bio-degradability, negligible toxicity, and existence of modifiable functional groups 15. Nowadays there are a lot of scientific research dedicated to the light induced polymerization. As there exist diverse technical implementations of this technology, it is known in many names: lithography (stereolithography, digital light processing (DLP)/projection lithography), direct laser writing (DLW) or alternatively laser direct writing (LDW), two-photon polymerization (2PP), nonlinear lithography (NLL), multi-photon lithography (MPL), etc. However, this additive manufacturing process simply can be called by one common name: optical 3D printing (O3DP) as it is based on photons. This rapid prototyping tool is being developed as a choice for efficient and low waste production tool, yet currently associated with mainly petroleum-derived resins 16-19. On the other hand, O3DP in combination with post-processing (thermal-treatment) allows fabrication of free-form structures which can serve as 3D templates f...

Vegetable Oil-Based Thiol-Ene/Thiol-Epoxy Resins for Laser Direct Writing 3D Micro-/Nano-Lithography

“…Here we demonstrate a line of 103 nm thickness produced in biobased resins for the very first time, which is currently a record value for it. Previously reported features were of 500 nm [ 65 ] and sub-400 nm [ 66 ], respectively. Finally, bulky arc-type objects are displayed in Figure 6 d. It reveals that complex architecture structures can be manufactured reproducibly out of polymer 75C/25D, as hanged bulk parts of 100 μm length survive even without critical point drying.…”

UV-Light Curing of 3D Printing Inks from Vegetable Oils for Stereolithography

“…An innovative and easy to prototype process was developed by printing a bio-based resin derived from soybean oil using optical 3D printing (O3DP) as an efficient and low waste production AM technique. The printing is made without the use of any photoinitiator and able to print objects with good reproducibly at sub-micrometer accuracy [ 30 ].…”

Photopolymerization Mechanisms at a Spatio-temporally Ultra-confined Light

“…Yet the technology is developed rapidly enabling true 3D printing without a specific scale or limited to the type of material. Multi-scale lithography employing single bio-derived resin has been recently demonstrated, filling the gap of scales created by the feature dimensions fabricated via linear and non-linear absorption processes [264]. A facile multi-material 3D manufacturing strategy was validated, too [265], finally, heat-treatment post processing enabled true inorganic structures without geometrical or dimensional restrictions [20].…”