The polyimide material Kapton® developed by DuPont has many excellent properties (such as being stable from -269 ° C to 400 ° C and Young's modulus exceeding 2 GPa), so it is widely used. However, it will not be changed by conventional techniques because it will change when it reaches about 600 °C.

Fortunately, the Institute of Polymer Innovation at Virginia Tech (VT) has found a viable method and is the world's first 3D printing method called mask projection photocuring.

It is understood that the principle of this method is to first cause a "light-induced chemical cross-linking" of a soluble precursor polymer containing a "photocrosslinkable acrylate group" in a gel state, and then heat-treating it. Converted to polyimide.

At present, the VT team has proved the feasibility of the method (the dimensional shrinkage of the molded part is isotropic, the geometric integrity can be maintained by post-processing) and the expandability (that is, the larger size can be printed), and this It is expected to bring new solutions for water filtration, gas separation, automotive, aerospace and other fields.