Sustainable 3D Printing Materials: Design of Biobased Acrylate/Nanosilica Nanocomposites

Vat-photopolymerization 3D printing has revolutionized precision manufacturing and biomedical engineering by enabling rapid prototyping. Biobased acrylates offer an eco-friendly alternative characterized by their inherent renewability and reduced ecological footprint. However, their practical adoption is constrained by two fundamental material science challenges: the evolution of inhomogeneous cross-linking networks, which causes anisotropic shrinkage of 4–8%, and their limited mechanical strength─typically below 30 MPa─resulting from inherent molecular chain flexibility. This study pioneers a bionano synergistic strategy that incorporates surface-engineered SiO2 nanoparticles into bioacrylate matrices. Through rheological measurements and UV-curing kinetics, a high tensile strength of 78.7 ± 2.2 MPa and a low shrinkage of 1.4% were achieved, which not only advances molecular-level design strategies for sustainable high-performance photopolymers but also establishes a fundamental framework for developing functional bioresins through programmed nanoparticle interfaces.