Lanzhou Institute of physics and chemistry: high temperature resistant, light curing, 3D printing polyimide ink

The surface interface research team of the State Key Laboratory of solid lubrication, Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences made a breakthrough in 3D printing of high-performance ink materials They have developed a 3D printing high-performance polyimide photosensitive resin, whose excellent comprehensive performance makes it possible to manufacture parts and mechanisms with high precision, high heat resistance, high strength and complex structure by direct 3D rapid prototyping Figure 1: DLP 3D printing polyimide oil filter mesh plug and 300oC / 3H high temperature baking experiment (source: Lanzhou Institute of physics and Chemistry) 3D printing technology (also known as additive manufacturing), is an advanced molding technology with special complex structure for rapid manufacturing Among them, UV curing 3D printing (such as SLA, DLP, etc.) has attracted the attention of 3D printing industry at home and abroad for its high printing accuracy and good surface quality of printed objects, especially in the manufacturing of parts with complex shapes (such as hollow) and particularly fine shapes (such as crafts, jewelry, etc.) However, at present, the resin materials used for UV curing 3D printing are mainly acrylic resin or epoxy resin The molding parts printed with this kind of resin materials have the disadvantages of poor mechanical strength, poor high temperature resistance, easy moisture absorption and expansion, and poor chemical stability, most of which can only be used in 100 o It is used in the environment below C, so its application is mainly limited to model, sample, design verification and production of art products, and it is difficult to break through the bottleneck of direct manufacturing of parts Therefore, the development of high-performance 3D printing ink materials, so as to meet the practical application in the fields of automobile, aerospace, electronics and other comprehensive performance requirements, has become an important challenge and research focus in the field of 3D printing at home and abroad Figure 2: DLP 3D printing polyimide high temperature resistant parts (bearing, gear, gearbox cover, etc.) / model and surface morphology of formed parts (source: Lanzhou Institute of physics and Chemistry) Polyimide, as a special engineering material, has excellent mechanical properties, high temperature resistance, chemical corrosion resistance and excellent dielectric properties It has been widely used in aerospace, microelectronics, nano, liquid crystal, separation membrane, laser and other fields There is no doubt that the development of high-performance 3D printing polyimide ink materials will have a wide range of potential applications in many fields However, the application and development of polyimide are always restricted by the processing problems such as immiscible and refractory Therefore, the design and preparation of fast curing polyimide resin with excellent solubility is the key to meet the special requirements of solvent-free UV curing 3D printing ink Through the design of polyimide molecular structure, the researchers have developed the fast curing polyimide resin with excellent solubility and the photo curable polyimide inks for 3D printing, J mater Chem A DOI: 10.1039/c7ta01952a with excellent high temperature resistance and other comprehensive properties The glass transition temperature of the 3D printing polyimide material is higher than 200oC, and it does not break or bend after being treated in 300 OC oven or soaked in hot oil, and it still maintains good mechanical strength (Fig 1), which shows that it has excellent high-temperature stability and can be used for a long time under high temperature The complex structural mechanical parts and models (Fig 2) printed by the resin material are expected to be developed and applied in the fields of aerospace, automobile manufacturing and microelectronics, providing new opportunities for the direct rapid prototyping manufacturing of complex structural parts and mechanisms with high precision, high heat resistance and high strength of 3D printing advanced manufacturing technology in relevant fields Paper link: http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/article landing/2017/ta/c7ta01952a