en.Wedoany.com Reported - Additive manufacturing is on track to reach the scale and ubiquity of injection molding and forming processes, and companies like CubiCure and Supernova are driving this transformation through high-viscosity photopolymer technology.

For a long time, photopolymer resins for additive manufacturing leveraged existing adhesive and coating chemistry to accelerate resin development. However, photopolymer properties often lag behind traditional manufacturing materials, with common drawbacks including weak thermomechanical performance, severe anisotropy, and high VOC emissions. A key factor causing these issues is the necessity to significantly reduce printing viscosity. To lower printing viscosity, formulators rely on low molecular weight oligomers and high levels of reactive diluents, but this approach results in printed polymer network structures with poor architecture and effective molecular weight.

Introducing higher molecular weight oligomers can improve mechanical characteristics and enhance product safety. As molecular weight increases, the influence of oligomer characteristics on final performance also grows, enabling more uniform crosslinking, reduced internal stress, stronger interlayer adhesion, and lower VOCs.

Austrian company CubiCure is at the forefront of using high-viscosity photopolymers with thermal lithography technology. Thermal lithography is a heated stereolithography production process that can reach temperatures of 100°C, with each layer cured by UV light. Its industrial printer system, Cerion, uses a carrier film method to deposit and cure resin layer by layer, and has expanded into product lines including flame-retardant plastics and high-resolution resins.

Headquartered in the U.S. with roots in Spain, Supernova has pioneered Viscous Lithography Manufacturing technology, which first precisely deposits a viscous gel layer, followed by controlled photopolymerization. Its viscous gel is a proprietary high-viscosity photopolymer, and the technology is capable of processing materials with unlimited viscosity, with products ranging from rigid, high-impact-resistant plastics to elastomers and silicone materials. Its printer, Pulse One, demonstrates the production scale of this technology.

By introducing higher molecular weight oligomers and combining thermal lithography and viscous lithography manufacturing processes, CubiCure and Supernova are expanding the material and printing boundaries of high-viscosity photopolymers in industrial additive manufacturing.

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