VAT 3D printing of polymerizable ionic liquids for VOC capture

Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) are threats to human health, therefore, developing systems that can trap them is of primary interest. The strategies exploited, such as powder beds, active carbons, or liquid systems, are effective but limited by the complexity of manipulating such systems. To tackle this problem, here, 3D printable systems based on photocurable polymerizable ionic liquids (PILs) are proposed. Several photocurable formulations were developed and the most promising were employed in Digital Light Processing (DLP) 3D printing, which allowed the fabrication of complex objects with high precision and fidelity (mean error value lower than ±0.12 mm). Finally, the ability of those 3D printed structures to trap VOCs such as acetone and acetonitrile was studied in detail by gravimetric testing (absorption capacity up to 21.6 wt% for Acetone and 17.4 wt% for Acetonitrile), and the nature of solvent-polymer interaction was investigated by FTIR spectroscopy, resulting to be completely reversible.