Exploration Of Photocurable Functional Materials And Their Applications

Light curing technology has been widely used in coatings,3D printing,nano manufacturing,etc.The process is fast and precise,however,the potential for designing functional materials is poorly developed.Photocuring 3D printing is available with spatial light curing but it’s limited to thermosetting resin and the printing speed is limited.The temporal and spatial light control can be used to differentially control the properties of materials.However,researchers usually focuses on the change between original state and final state,the property change in the evolution process hasn’t been well studied.Accordingly,this study intends to explore the functional applications of thermoplastic complex sacrificial molds,complex structure self-healing materials,and the dynamically evolving crystalline phase change materials.In the first research part,we focused on light-curing 3D printing of thermoplastic polymers.With selected photocurable monomers,we have developed photocurable thermoplastic polymer printing system which improves the printing speed and accuracy of thermoplastic polymers.Furthermore,we used the surface oxygen inhibition effect formed by oxygen in the air to speed up the liquid leveling speed of the fresh precursor,thereby realizing a rapid light-curing printing system.Furthermore,we adjust the polymer molecular weight with the addition of additives.The resulted polymer has good water solubility and high-temperature melting properties,which has been successfully transfer-molded to commercial resin materials such as epoxy resin and silicone rubber.In the second part of the research,we have successfully printed material with low-modulus and complex three-dimensional structure.The soft material can readily self heal under room temperature owing to the dynamic hydrogen bonding.Soft materials with different moduli can be obtained by changing the monomer ratio of the precursor,and the combined variable modulus material can be accessed by interfacial hydrogen bonding.This system provides a feasible method for the construction of self-healing materials with complex structure.In the third part of the research,we developed a functional dynamic crystalline pattern for anti-counterfeiting.Crystalline polymer material bears the characteristics of optical opacity and latent heat.Here we used light curing time as a parameter to digitally control the crystallization behavior in a two-dimensional plane.Through the careful distribution of curing light,we realized the preparation of dynamic crystalline patterns and successfully applied them to the construction of time-effetive QR codes.Furthermore,using the difference in crystallization enthalpy,we realized dynamic self-evolved infrared patterns and explored the application for time-sensitive infrared encryption.