Photocurable resin for SLA printing of PEEK-grade parts
This technology enables high-performance aromatic plastics — the kind typically found in aerospace and electronics applications — to be 3D printed using standard light-based printing equipment. The trick is converting these normally unprintable materials into a light-sensitive liquid resin by forming a salt with a photocrosslinkable amine, which allows UV or visible light to trigger hardening layer by layer. The resulting printed parts can then be thermally processed into finished high-performance polymers such as polyimides or PEEK-like materials. This solves a long-standing barrier: these engineering plastics have excellent heat and chemical resistance but were previously incompatible with photopolymerization-based 3D printing.
What you could build
A specialty resin product line for industrial SLA/DLP 3D printers that produces parts with PEEK- or polyimide-grade performance; target buyers are aerospace component manufacturers, defense contractors, and electronics packaging companies needing complex, heat-resistant geometries in low volumes.
Who in Virginia should care
Defense primes and government contractors in Northern Virginia and the Hampton Roads corridor — particularly those working on electronics packaging, satellite components, or UAV structures — would have direct use for printable high-performance polymer parts.
Readiness: Lab validated
Concept — described but not yet demonstrated. Lab validated — supported by experimental results in the patent. Prototype likely — the text describes a built, working embodiment.
Readiness is inferred from the patent text, not from a lab visit.
The record
- Inventors
- Jana Herzberger, Timothy E. Long, Viswanath Meenakshisundaram, Christopher B. Williams
- Granted
- June 25, 2024
- Status
- Granted patent
- Patent number
- 12018127
Ready to talk?
Virginia Tech Intellectual Properties handles licensing for this technology.
Prosim summaries are generated from public patent text and are not legal advice.