4D printed stereolithography printed plant-based sustainable polymers: Preliminary investigation and optimization

The increasing demand for applying shape memory polymer to tissue culture and biomedical engineering has opened up research opportunities in the field of 4D Printing. The biocompatibility of the scaffolds as a culture medium resulted in the use of plant-based polymers to provide an ambient environment for the growth of cells. This research investigates the 4D printing of acrylated epoxidized soybean oil (AESO), a plant-based shape polymer. The objective of the present work is to establish the relationship between the 4D printing parameters (laser power frequency and print speed) and different properties of the printed material viz. tensile stress, surface roughness, wettability, recovery time, strain fixity and glass transition temperature. The maximum fixity was about 85%, while the recovery time as low as 1.6 s. The print parameters are optimized using regression modeling and multi-objective optimization techniques. The shape memory effect of the polymer is demonstrated by printing samples at the optimized conditions. Dynamic mechanical analysis is performed to evaluate the variation in the glass transition temperature of AESO at specific print parameters. The adoption of an optimal set of laser frequency and print speed is found to improve the properties of AESO, while built by micro stereolithography (micro-SLA).

Automated summary

This study investigates 4D printing of plant-based shape memory polymer, analyzing the relationship between printing parameters and material properties. By optimizing the print parameters and using laser frequency and print speed, the performance of the polymer is improved.