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Special Resins for Stereolithography: In Situ Generation of Silver Nanoparticles.

Authors :
Taormina G
Sciancalepore C
Bondioli F
Messori M
Source :
Polymers [Polymers (Basel)] 2018 Feb 22; Vol. 10 (2). Date of Electronic Publication: 2018 Feb 22.
Publication Year :
2018

Abstract

The limited availability of materials with special properties represents one of the main limitations to a wider application of polymer-based additive manufacturing technologies. Filled resins are usually not suitable for vat photo-polymerization techniques such as stereolithography (SLA) or digital light processing (DLP) due to a strong increment of viscosity derived from the presence of rigid particles within the reactive suspension. In the present paper, the possibility to in situ generate silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) starting from a homogeneous liquid system containing a well dispersed silver salt, which is subsequently reduced to metallic silver during stereolithographic process, is reported. The simultaneous photo-induced cross-linking of the acrylic resin produces a filled thermoset resin with thermal-mechanical properties significantly enhanced with respect to the unfilled resin, even at very low AgNPs concentrations. With this approach, the use of silver salts having carbon-carbon double bonds, such as silver acrylate and silver methacrylate, allows the formation of a nanocomposite structure in which the release of by-products is minimized due to the active role of all the reactive components in the three dimensional (3D)-printing processes. The synergy, between this nano-technology and the geometrical freedom offered by SLA, could open up a wide spectrum of potential applications for such a material, for example in the field of food packaging and medical and healthcare sectors, considering the well-known antimicrobial effects of silver nanoparticles.<br />Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest. The founding sponsors had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, and in the decision to publish the results.

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
2073-4360
Volume :
10
Issue :
2
Database :
MEDLINE
Journal :
Polymers
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
30966248
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.3390/polym10020212