While the first wave of the additive manufacturing (AM) age was aimed at ensuring high resolution reproduction of the printed shapes, the past few years have seen a shift in the materials community towards producing polymeric components with properties tailored to the specific application and service environment. Although the use of phthalate and citrate-based plasticizers has been ubiquitous over the past century, very few investigations have been done in the realm of stereolithography (SLA) printing. Furthermore, previous work in the intersection of traditional polymer science and ionic liquids have shown that the latter has the ability to modify the mechanical properties of the finished component while exhibiting minimal leaching behavior. In this presentation, we will discuss our work on incorporating both traditional (e.g. citrate, phthalate, and trimellitate) and imidazolium-based plasticizers into stereolithography resins. Functional group effects for traditional plasticizers (e.g. alkyl group length), as well as cation-anion pairing and inclusion of alkenyl groups in ionic liquids, on the mechanical properties and leaching behavior at elevated temperatures, where both tests were performed in accordance with ASTM standards. It was found that IL concentrations as high as 50% were possible and exhibited minimal leaching behavior even after 21 days. Furthermore, there was a common concentration threshold across all plasticizers above which the elastic modulus precipitously fell. This data suggests that ionic liquids can serve as excellent plasticizer alternatives in additively manufactured components in which health and environmental risks, as well as plasticizer loss in warmer climes, pose a major concern.<br/>

Incorporation of traditional and ionic liquid-based plasticizers into components produced by stereolithography

2019 Spring National Meeting

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