With the rapid growth of consumerism and environmental pollution with plastics, alternatives to petroleum-based plastics, which decompose in nature over many years, are being sought. Vitrimers are a new promising class of polymeric materials having cross-linked structure but able to be thermally processed into new products. 3D printing is often called as the industrial revolution, as it allows quick and inexpensive production on demand. Acrylic resins derived from petroleum products are usually used in optical 3D printing (O3DP). Compounds of glycerol, a by-product of biodiesel production, directly or modified can be used as a starting material in the synthesis of various biodegradable plastics. Glycerol acrylates and epoxides are already used for the preparation of coatings, adhesives, thermoplastics, contact lenses, various functional materials, and dental applications, but little information is found on their use in O3DP. Glycerol acrylates and epoxides are considered as non-toxic, biodegradable, and can be used in medicine, therefore the use of glycerol acrylates or epoxides for the synthesis of vitrimers by O3DP is very relevant. The aim of this research project is the synthesis of novel glycerol-based vitrimers for optical O3DP and investigation of their properties. The synthesized vitrimers from renewable raw materials will be applied in O3DP and tested with commercial O3DP devices. The results of this project will be published in 4 international conferences and 4 scientific publications with citation index in the Clarivate Analytics Web of Science database.
Project funding:
This research project is funded by the European Social Fund according to the 2014–2020 Operational Programme for the European Union Funds’ Investments, under measure’s No. 09.3.3-LMT-K-712 activity “Promotion of postdoctoral fellowships studies”.
Period of project implementation: 2021-06-15 - 2023-06-14
Project coordinator: Kaunas University of Technology
