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September 19-22, 2023 • Boulder, Colorado

Technical Program

Wednesday, September  20, 8:20 – 12:00 :: Session 1

Session Chair: Chris Bowman

8:20 – 8:30Chris Bowman, Welcome and Opening Remarks
8:30 – 9:00
Transforming Product Design with Next-Generation Photopolymer Materials and Carbon’s Digital Light Synthesis™ Platform
Jason Rolland, Carbon
9:00 – 9:30
The Path Towards Photopolymerizing Quadrillions of Bits Per Second to Achieve Mass Meso - and Micro-Architecture - Describing the fundamental challenges ahead for the next generation of polymer chemists
Walter Voit, Desktop Metal
9:30 – 10:00
Hot Lithography - A Technology Platform for High-Performance Photopolymers in 3D Printing
Christian Gorsche, Cubicure GmbH
10:00 – 10:20Break
10:20 – 10:50
Using Living/Controlled Radical Polymerization in Photocuring 3D Printing
Cyrille Boyer, University of New South Wales
10:50 – 11:20
Photopolymerization of Liquid Crystalline Monomers and Oligomers to Realize Distinctive Optical and Robotic Functionality
Tim White, University of Colorado
11:20 – 11:50
Ultratough Ionogels via Photopolymerization
Michael Dickey, North Carolina State University
12:00 – 1:30Lunch

Wednesday, September  20, 1:30 – 6:00 :: Session 2

Session Chair: 

1:30 – 2:00
Exponential amplification of initiators via photoredox autocatalysis
Hadley Sikes, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2:00 – 2:30
Hybrid Photopolymer Scaffolds using Projection Microstereolithography for Musculoskeletal Tissue Engineering
Stephanie Bryant, University of Colorado
2:30 – 3:00
Advances in Lithography-based 3D Printing of Hydrogels
Jason Burdick, University of Colorado
3:00 – 3:30
Photopolymerizations for creating engineered microenvironments: From 3D culture models to biomanufacturing
April M. Kloxin, Ph.D., University of Delaware
4:00 – 6:00Poster Session & Vendor Exhibit
7:00 – 9:00Dinner at The Chattaqua House
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Transforming Product Design with Next-Generation Photopolymer Materials and Carbon’s Digital Light Synthesis™ Platform

Jason Rolland, Carbon

This presentation will provide an overview of Carbon’s Digital Light Synthesis (DLS) platform. We will discuss how DLS provides the key elements – speed, materials, and software – to enable true digital manufacturing at scale. Carbon’s dual-cure materials platform enables a broad portfolio of high performance resins for a variety of production applications. By combining light-curable chemistry with thermally-curable chemistry, high resolution parts with outstanding mechanical and thermal performance are now possible. Finally, we will present a variety of production applications enabled by DLS across a range of industries including footwear, protective cushioning, automotive, consumer products, dental, and medical.

Hot Lithography – A Technology Platform for High-Performance Photopolymers in 3D Printing

Christian Gorsche, Cubicure GmbH

Additive manufacturing technologies are increasingly adapted as production alternatives for industrial applications because they enable freedom of design, individual customization, and on-demand manufacturing. The need for short product cycles and rapid innovation in key markets such as the medical, consumer goods, mobility, and electronics industries further drive the implementation of additive manufacturing. Lithography-based additive manufacturing technologies (L-AMTs) are the methods of choice, when it comes to the production of complex parts with high resolution (down to 10 µm) and exceptional surface quality (Rz < 10 µm). However, the material portfolio for L-AMTs has been limited to low-viscosity prototyping resins exhibiting poor (thermo)mechanical properties. Hot Lithography, an L-AMT developed by Cubicure GmbH, addresses this challenge by enabling reliable processing of light-curable, viscous formulations (up to 20 Pa s) at elevated temperatures (up to 120 °C). With this expanded window of opportunity for material development, an extended library of key components becomes accessible. This could entail innovative materials with optimized molecular weight, high melting temperatures, strong intermolecular forces, new reactive groups or high contents of functional fillers (e.g., ceramic, metal or polymer). Thus, polymer part manufacturing for target industries is supported by i) industrially relevant production throughput and quality (e.g., Cerion® production plant) and ii) unique performance photopolymers (e.g., impact toughness > 50 J/m; materials with UL 94 V-0 classification, 1 heat deflection temperature > 300 °C and high thermal conductivity2 ). This enables the flexible production of functional additively manufactured parts optimized for applications such as electronic connectors (see Figure 1).

Photopolymerization of Liquid Crystalline Monomers and Oligomers to Realize Distinctive Optical and Robotic Functionality

Tim White, University of Colorado

Liquid crystalline materials are pervasive in our daily interaction with displays in our personal and professional lives. The photopolymerization of liquid crystalline monomers, long discussed in this community, have also found widespread commercial use as optical elements to improve the optical performance of displays. These materials have been designed to be stable over a wide range of temperatures. Extensive prior research has examined liquid crystalline polymer networks with suppressed Tg (e.g., elastomers), typically due to an increase in molecular weight between crosslinks. These so-called liquid crystalline elastomers are distinct in exhibiting dramatic stimuli-response associated with order-disorder transitions as well as exceptional nonlinearities to mechanical perturbation. This presentation will summarize the preparation of liquid crystalline elastomers via photopolymerization with a special emphasis on functional implications in robotics, optics, and in health care.

Advances in Lithography-based 3D Printing of Hydrogels

Jason Burdick, University of Colorado

Lithography-based biofabrication techniques are being used to engineer structured hydrogels towards biomedical applications, including for tissue repair. Examples include digital light processing (DLP) and volumetric additive manufacturing (VAM), where spatial control over light exposure guides the conversion of photo-reactive resins. DLP is a layer-by-layer approach that requires non-viscous resins for processing, whereas VAM is an emerging rapid 3D method where a vial containing a viscous reactive resin and photoinitiator rotates as it is exposed to light (405 nm) with continuous changes in the projection pattern. Our overall goals are to engineer new resins and to increase the compatibility of these methods with current resins, to expand the available hydrogel materials that can be processed using lithography. For DLP, we have engineered new resins to obtain hydrolytically-degradable or tough printed hydrogels, using approaches of new reactive macromer design (e.g., norbornene HA from carbic anhydride) or the engineering of one-step double networks, respectively. Major limitations to VAM printing include (i) the limited number of resins available that meet the viscosity requirements for printing and (ii) that primarily uniform compositions have been printed. To address these concerns, we developed an approach that utilizes sacrificial gelation that (i) modulates the viscosity of resins to allow for VAM printing of reactive macromers and then removal of the gelatin from printed structures and (ii) sequential suspension bath extrusion printing and then VAM printing, which allows for the patterning of multi-material resins that can be processed into multi-material hydrogel constructs.

Photopolymerizations for creating engineered microenvironments: From 3D culture models to biomanufacturing

April M. Kloxin, Ph.D., University of Delaware

The microenvironments that cells experience in the human body, which vary in structure, stiffness, and biochemical content, are instrumental in cell function and fate in disease processes, from scar tissue formation in the lungs that leads to fibrosis to the re-activation of dormant disseminated tumor cells that leads to the late cancer recurrence. Engineered, bioinspired culture systems provide great opportunities for both i) studying these complex processes for improved mechanistic understanding and drug evaluation and ii) exploiting known mechanisms for improved production of cell-based therapies. In this talk, I will highlight some of our recent efforts in this arena utilizing the power of photopolymerizations. Specifically, we have established reductionist synthetic extracellular matrices (ECMs) based on well-defined photopolymerized hydrogels and inspired by common sites of late recurrence (e.g., bone marrow, lungs). We have applied these ECMs in 3D cultures, along with a range of molecular tools, to dissect different cell-matrix and cell-cell interactions in breast cancer dormancy and re-activation. Additionally, for enhancing the production of cell therapies, we collaboratively have established a modular manufacturing platform that combines photopolymerized bioinspired coatings with commercial flow-based membrane devices for improved activation, expansion, and transduction of human T-cells. Together, our results demonstrate the great utility of photopolymerizations for the creation of soft biomaterials with precisely controlled properties for addressing outstanding needs in improving human health.