Curable Oil-in-Water Emulsion for 3D Functional Printing

Ido Cooperstein, Casali Center for Applied Chemistry, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Isreal, Jerusalem, Israel
Michael Layani, Casali Center for Applied Chemistry, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Isreal, Jerusalem, Israel
Shlomo Magdassi, Casali Center for Applied Chemistry, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Isreal, Jerusalem, Israel


The latest development in the three dimensional printing technologies and the high interest of the industries, have led to increase in demand for new printable materials. 3D printing as an additive fabrication process which is implemented in a variety of fields such as modeling and scaffolds for medical applications. The 3D structures are formed with different polymers or polymeric precursors and additives, while currently the main function is the structure itself.

The goal of our research is to fabricate 3D structures with interconnected pores, with functional material within the pores. These structures are fabricated by printing a newly developed oil-in-water emulsion ink composed of a curable acrylic monomers mixture as the "oil" droplets in water phase. The printing is performed by the digital light process (DLP) method, in which the structure is formed by local polymerization of monomers.  At first stage, the UV light cure the monomer droplets, and at the second stage, the continuous phase (water) evaporates away and leaves interconnected voids. Currently we focus on impregnating these structures with silver nanoparticles that after a simple room temperature sintering process can connect to form a conductive, continues silver matrix within a solid polymer.