Effect of functionality of diluents on digital light processing (DLP) based three-dimensional (3D) printing of UV-curable bisphenol A-based epoxy acrylate resin

Digital light processing (DLP) based three-dimensional (3D) printing technology which uses photocurable resin has been a center of interest due to its printing accuracy and printing speed. In our research, we have synthesized and modified the bisphenol A-based epoxy acrylate resin for the DLP 3D printer having a printing accuracy of 50 mu m. As the viscosity plays an important role in printing accuracy, the resin was modified with mono-functional, di-functional, tri-functional, and combination of di-tri functional acrylate diluents as well as with photoinitiator to achieve the desired level of viscosity. The process parameters like curing time and intensity were optimized using the DLP 3D printer. The uncured and UV-cured samples were characterized using FTIR-ATR, 1HNMR, UV-VISIBLE, and TGA techniques. The analysis of the uncured and UV-cured samples was carried out using viscosity, gel content, water absorption, and chemical resistance test. The mechanical properties of the UV-cured samples were determined using hardness and tensile strength test. The 3D-printed samples were observed under high-resolution microscope to confirm the printing quality and resolution. The resulting outcome confirmed that the proper selection of diluents is an important parameter for achieving the good quality and resolution of samples printed using the DLP 3D printer technology.Highlights Synthesis and modification of UV-curable resin Selection of diluents for controlling the processablility of UV-curable resin Optimization of process parameters for DLP based 3D printer 3D printing of samples having good quality, resolution and feature size. Digital light processing (DLP) based three-dimensional (3D) printing of epoxy acrylate resin. image