High T_g, Bio-Based Isosorbide Methacrylate Resin Systems for Vat Photopolymerization

The use of isosorbide-derived polymers has garnered significant attention in recent decades as a high-performance, renewable material sourced from biomass. Of particular interest is isosorbide methacrylate, which possesses low viscosity (<500 cps), high thermal properties (T_g ≈ 220 °C), and high modulus (>4 GPa). These characteristics present a promising opportunity to replace BPA-derived methacrylate compounds in various applications. This investigation aims to synthesize and characterize isosorbide-based low-viscosity resin systems for 3D printing. The resin blends are composed of isosorbide methacrylate and two bio-renewable methacrylates, furfuryl methacrylate (FM) and bis-hydroxymethyl-furan methacrylate (BHMF-M), polymerized through a digital light processing (DLP) technique. The addition of the bio-based co-monomers serves to enhance the fracture toughness of the brittle isosorbide methacrylate crosslinked homopolymer (G_Ic = 37 J/m²). The resulting polymers exhibit T_g values greater than 200 °C and G_Ic around 100 J/m². These resin systems hold potential for imparting high bio-based content to polymers used in additive manufacturing for high-performance applications.