Page 66 - Plastics News May 2026
P. 66
PRODUCT NEWS
part geometry, throughput, and ultimate layer bonding layers, and reduces VOCs. Though
end use. High-viscosity resins tend to cause high molecular weight may improve material
hardware issues, such as high delamination performance, it also drives dramatic increases
forces, leading to poor prints. To reduce in print viscosity. This double-edged sword can
print viscosity and improve final part ge- be solved with tailored oligomer backbones,
ometry, formulators rely on low-molecular- smartly designed reactive diluents in tandem
weight oligomers and high levels of reactive with hardware innovations.
diluents. Short-chained oligomers tend to
dominate cured polymer performance, while State-of-The-Art Technology
reactive diluents drastically reduce print vis- CubiCure
cosity. This formulation approach addresses
viscosity concerns but produces printed pol-
ymers with poor network architecture and
effective molecular weight.
High Viscosity Solutions
CubiCure, an award-winning Austrian additive
manufacturing company, is a trailblazer for in-
novative high viscosity photopolymers and print
technologies using hot lithography. Hot lithog-
raphy is a heated stereolithographic production
Comparing relationship between print process o
temperature and print viscosity of hot lithogra- process, up to 100 C, where layers are cured
phy and traditional SLA/DLP technology. Cour- with UV light. This technology enables a broad
tesy of CubiCure. material portfolio including industrial elastomers
to high impact performance resins. Most recent-
Incorporating higher molecular weight oligomers ly, their expanded portfolio shows a rigid flame-
is a leading solution, improving mechanical char- retardant plastic for electrical applications and a
acteristics and ultimately product safety. As mo- high-resolution resin for dimensional accuracy of
lecular weight increases, so does the influence micro components.
of an oligomer’s characteristics in final proper-
ties. This enables more uniform crosslinking, can To print high viscosity materials, CubiCure has
reduce internal stress, supports stronger inter- developed two hot lithography printers for vis-
cous photopolymers. Cerion, their industrial
68 PLASTICS NEWS May 2026
