High-strength boehmite-acrylate composites for 3D printing: Reinforced filler-matrix interactions

The development of additive manufacturing has offered great potential as well as challenge to resins with good performance. Here we report a facile strategy to obtain significant enhancement of mechanical properties for resins via incorporation of boehmite nanowires surface modified by a new modifier β-carboxyethyl acrylate (β-CEA), instead of the commonly used coupling agent 3-trimethoxysilylpropyl methacrylate (TMSPM). Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) characterizations were conducted to demonstrate the grafting of β-CEA onto the surface of boehmite nanowires. Significant mechanical enhancement was demonstrated by manufacturing and evaluation of product quality of delicate Fullerene model with neat acrylate and composite resins with β-CEA-AlOOH via Digital Light Processing (DLP) 3D printing.