Synthesis of crystalline gels on a light-induced polymerization 3D printer (Conference Presentation)

3D printing, also knows as Additive Manufacturing (AM), was first commercialized in 1986, and has been growing at breakneck speed since 2009 when Stratasys’ key patent expired. Currently the 3D printing machines coming on the market can be broadly classified into three categories from the material state point of view: plastic filament printers, powder (or pellet) printers, film printers and liquid photopolymer printers. Much of the work in our laboratory revolves around the crystalline gels. We have succeeded in developing them with high toughness, high flexibility, particularly with many functions as shape memory, energy storage, freshness-retaining, water-absorbing, etc. These crystalline gels are synthesized by light-induced radical polymerization that involves light-reactive monomer having the property of curing with light of a sufficient energy to drive the reaction from liquid to solid. Note that the light-induced polymerized 3D printing uses the same principle. To open up the possibilities for broader application of our crystalline functional gels, we are interested in making them available for 3D printing. In this paper, we share the results of our latest research on the 3D printing of crystalline gels on light-induced 3D printers.