Reprocessable thermosets for sustainable three-dimensional printing

Zhang, B., Kowsari, K., Serjouei, A. ORCID: 0000-0002-7250-4131, Dunn, M.L. and Ge, Q., 2018. Reprocessable thermosets for sustainable three-dimensional printing. Nature Communications, 9: 1831. ISSN 2041-1723

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Abstract

Among all three-dimensional (3D) printing materials, thermosetting photopolymers claim almost half of the market, and have been widely used in various fields owing to their superior mechanical stability at high temperatures, excellent chemical resistance as well as good compatibility with high-resolution 3D printing technologies. However, once these thermosetting photopolymers form 3D parts through photopolymerization, the covalent networks are permanent and cannot be reprocessed, i.e., reshaped, repaired, or recycled. Here, we report a two-step polymerization strategy to develop 3D printing reprocessable thermosets (3DPRTs) that allow users to reform a printed 3D structure into a new arbitrary shape, repair a broken part by simply 3D printing new material on the damaged site, and recycle unwanted printed parts so the material can be reused for other applications. These 3DPRTs provide a practical solution to address environmental challenges associated with the rapid increase in consumption of 3D printing materials.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Nature Communications
Creators:	Zhang, B., Kowsari, K., Serjouei, A., Dunn, M.L. and Ge, Q.
Publisher:	Nature Publishing Group
Date:	8 May 2018
Volume:	9
ISSN:	2041-1723
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1038/s41467-018-04292-8 DOI 4292 Publisher Item Identifier
Divisions:	Schools > School of Science and Technology
Record created by:	Jonathan Gallacher
Date Added:	28 Feb 2019 16:22
Last Modified:	28 Feb 2019 16:22
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/35859

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