Highly Flexible and Photo-Activating Acryl-Polyurethane for 3D Steric Architectures

An acryl-functionalized polyurethane (PU) series was successfully synthesized using poly(tetramethylene ether) glycol-methylene diphenyl diisocyanate (PTMG-MDI) oligomer based on urethane methacrylates to control the flexibility of photo-cured 3D printing architectures. The mass ratio of acryl-urethane prepolymer: 1,4-butanediol (BD) chain-extender: diphenyl(2,4,6-trimethylbenzoyl) phosphine oxide (TPO) photoinitiator was 10:0.25:1. To produce suitably hard and precisely curved 3D architectures, the optimal UV absorbance and exposure energy of the acryl-PTMG-MDI resin were controlled precisely. Owing to the optimized viscosity of the acryl-PTMG-MDI resins, they could be printed readily by digital light processing (DLP) to form precisely curved 3D architectures after mixing with 1,6-hexanediol diacrylate (HDDA). The acryl-PTMG-MDI formulations showed much better flexural resolution than the neat resins. The printed 3D structure exhibited high surface hardness, good mechanical strength, and high elasticity for flexible applications in consumer/industrial and biomedical fields.