Synthesis and characterization of tung oil-based UV curable for three-dimensional printing resins

Abstract

Using tung oil as the raw material, a new bio-based prepolymer was successfully synthesized by reacting with acrylic-modified rosin (β-acryloyl nutrient ethyl) ester (ARA)/acrylic-2-hydroxyethyl ester (HEA) followed by the use of the above composite material as the matrix and then reacting with the active diluent (2-HEMA, TPGDA) and the photoinitiator TPO and Irgacure1173 to successfully synthesize a new type of bio-based prepolymer-acrylate-epoxy tung oil polypolymer (AETP). The tung oil monomer before and after the epoxy formation was compared by proton NMR spectroscopy, and the chemical structure of AETP was analyzed by Fourier transform spectroscopy. Tung oil has an acid value of 1.5 mg KOH per g, an epoxy value of 5.38%, an iodine value of 11.28 g/100 g, and a refractive index of n²⁵ = 1.475. Composite-based 3D printing resins (like AETP) were cured using digital light treatment, while some samples were also post-treated via ultraviolet (UV) light treatment. The AETP-based 3D printing resin has excellent thermal and mechanical properties, and the viscosity of its system is 313 mPa s; exposure time 4.5 s; the tensile strength, flexural strength and flexural modulus were 62 MPA, 63.84 MPa and 916.708 MPa, respectively; Shore hardness was 80 HD and shrinkage was 4.00%. The good performance of the AETP-based 3D printing resin is attributed to the rigidity of their tightly crosslinked structure. This study pioneered a method for producing photoactive acrylates (e.g., tung oil-based acrylate oligomer resins) from renewable, low-cost biomass for light-curing 3D printing.