Interfacial Photopolymerization (IPP) is a new method under development to 3D print recyclable thermoplastics with improved limits of resolution. Existing methods capable of printing at higher resolutions such as digital light processing (DLP) use photopolymerization to cure polymer within a vat of monomer precursor, but also rely an intrinsic crosslinking mechanism in thermoset polymers which means the printed parts are incompatible with large-scale recycling processes. Using polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) as a model thermoplastic, we demonstrate the use of an ultraviolet light source to induce photopolymerization, as in DLP, and cure polymer at an interface between an organic phase containing the monomer and an aqueous phase containing the photoinitiator (Figure 1). Due to the solubility of the cured thermoplastic polymer in the monomer precursor, an additional antisolvent is needed to be developed in the system to precipitate out the printed polymer. This antisolvent can be chosen based on Hildebrand solubility parameter differences.

Interfacial photopolymerization: Method for high resolution digital processing of recycable thermoplastics

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