An ordinary commercial MSLA printer can be harnessed to create a large scale foam manufacturing platform using our novel highly expandable foaming resin. This unique formulation allows for isotropic expansion of printed parts up to 40x (by volume), digital control over density, porosity and cell morphology. Our process represents nearly 2 orders of magnitude improvement over the prior art, and can be accomplished using a low-cost system (under $300) with a simple, commercially available chemical formulation. Our process allows for the fabrication of structures significantly larger than the build volume of the 3D printer which produced them. Complex geometries such as Voronoi structures, functional airfoils, and floatation aids composed of porous foams are presented with videos of their fabrication and testing. The potential applications for our system include architecture, aerospace, energy, and biomedicine. Screening and characterization of resin formulations, print parameters, observed mechanical properties, and resultant foam structure of the printed and expanded foam objects is presented as well.

HEMAfoam: A novel foaming resin expands applications for lithographic 3D printing

ACS Fall 2021

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.