Photoreactive monomers and polymers have emerged as key components in the preparation of resin formulations for 3D printing (3DP). Techniques such as stereolithography (SLA) and digital light printing (DLP) have gained increasing attention to light assisted polymerisation, most likely on account of their high resolution and fast printing speed. However, the number of resins for use in SLA and DLP remains limited and most commercially available ones are based on acrylates and epoxides, which are commonly produced from fossil sources - non-sustainable. Besides, undesired toxicity and non-degradability restrict the use of acrylated-based prototypes in the medical field. To overcome these challenges, a new platform that allows the printing of degradable, non-toxic and additive-free 3D objects is needed. Initially, the main goal of this project was to investigate the modification of cyclic carbonates with photoactive benzophenones to obtain photoreactive resins, allowing the crosslinking of materials through C-H-insertion without the addition of additives. However, the developed system showed certain complexity and could not be easily translated into 3D printing. With this in mind, a new system was developed to attend the current demands of commercial resins for 3DP. For this, renewable resins based on terpenes and multi-arm thiol were designed to access materials with a wide range of thermomechanical properties. Although the project followed a different direction, the main objectives remained the same: 1. Synthesis of novel photocrosslinkable resins. 2. Investigate the effect of resin architecture on the mechanical properties of the crosslinked materials. 3. Resin formulation for 3DP using the polymers/copolymers designed in step 1 and 2. The last objective involving the evaluation of the biological properties of the designed prints was not performed, as this was not a priority considering the remaining time of the project.
