Organically modified montmorillonite polymer nanocomposites for stereolithography building process

Novel photopolymerizable nanocomposite formulations, able to photopolymerize with a dual curing mechanism (cationic and radical), were developed, characterized and used in the stereolithography (SL) process for the construction of 3D objects with a very simple geometry. The influence of the presence of organically modified montmorillonite (OM) nanoparticles on the reactivity of the photopolymerizable liquid mixtures was firstly analyzed, as function of the amount of nanofiller, by photocalorimetric analysis (p-DSC). The basal distance of OM before and after mixing with the photocurable formulation was characterized by X-ray diffraction. Composites with higher content of OM show an intercalated structure. An exfoliated structure was instead observed in the composites with the lowest OM content, after photocuring in the SL apparatus. These results were also confirmed by the morphological analysis performed by SEM. The glass transition temperature of nanocomposites, photocured by stereolithography, was finally measured by TMA and DSC techniques, confirming that the photocurable formulation loaded with the lowest amount of OM presents improved properties than the unloaded formulation. Copyright (c) 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.