Research Progress of Self-Healing Polymer for Ultraviolet-Curing Three-Dimensional Printing

Abstract

Ultraviolet (UV)-curing technology as a photopolymerization technology has received widespread attention due to its advantages of high efficiency, wide adaptability, and environmental friendliness. Ultraviolet-based 3D printing technology has been widely used in the printing of thermosetting materials, but the permanent covalent cross-linked networks of thermosetting materials which are used in this method make it hard to recover the damage caused by the printing process through reprocessing, which reduces the service life of the material. Therefore, introducing dynamic bonds into UV-curable polymer materials might be a brilliant choice which can enable the material to conduct self-healing, and thus meet the needs of practical applications. The present review first introduces photosensitive resins utilizing dynamic bonds, followed by a summary of various types of dynamic bonds approaches. We also analyze the advantages/disadvantages of diverse UV-curable self-healing polymers with different polymeric structures, and outline future development trends in this field.