Development and Applications of UV-Curing 3D Printing and Photosensitive Resin

UV-curing 3D printing, one of the rapid prototyping technologies, can manufacture various complex objects by the layer-by-layer UV-curing of photosensitive resin. Comparing with other additive manufacturing technologies, it has already become one of the popular ones, due to its advantages of fast curing rate, high precision, eco-friendliness, excellent surface quality, low cost, and so on. Photosensitive resin is the preferred 3D printing main materials for high-precision products, owing to the excellent rheology properties and instant UV-curing characteristics. Generally, photosensitive resin used for 3D printing mainly consists of photosensitive prepolymers, reactive diluents, photo-initiators and a handful of additives. With the wider applications of UV-curing 3D printing, the consumption of photosensitive resin is rapidly increasing. However, there are some urgent problems to photosensitive resin, such as surface oxygen inhibition, high volume shrinkage and unsatisfactory mechanical properties. In view of the lack of systematic discussion on the latest research progress of UV-curing 3D printing and its photosensitive resin, this review focuses on the research advances and development prospect of UV-curing 3D printing and its photosensitive resin accordingly. Firstly, the printing principles and advantages and disadvantages of the universally available and newly-developed UV-curing 3D printing technologies are introduced detailly. Then, the effects of the basic compositions and molecular structures of photosensitive resins on the performances of 3D printed devices are emphatically discussed. The practical applications of UV-curing 3D printing and its photosensitive resins are also presented by living examples, including model making, industrial manufacturing and biomedical devices. Finally, the present status and future development of UV-curing 3D printing and its photosensitive resins are analyzed and prospected. This review will effectively contribute the technological progress and widen applications of UV-curing 3D printing and photosensitive resins.