Patent Title: THIOURETHANE POLYMERS, METHOD OF SYNTHESIS THEREOF AND USE IN FUSED FILAMENT FABRICATION PRINTING

 Number/Link:  WO2018/035102

Applicant/Assignee:  University of Texas

Publication date: 22 February 2018

“Gist”: Polythiourethanes from diisocyanates and dithiols are used in FFF printing

Why it is interesting: Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF), which is actually the same thing as  Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) is a popular and cheap additive manufacturing technology in which a thermoplastic filament is molten and ‘printed’ in layers. Many off-the-shelf thermoplastics can be used in FFF but these often do not have the correct melt characteristics resulting in printed objects of poor quality. According to this invention FFF-optimized thermoplastics can be prepared by reacting dithiols with diisocyanates into polythiourethanes.  The reaction is carried out in an aprotic solvent and catalysed by a non-nucleophilic base. In an example 2,2′-(ethylenedioxy)diethanethiol is reacted with HDI in DMF and catalysed by triethylamine. FFF printed parts of this polymer are said to show high toughness and less water uptake compared to TPU and polyamides.

Polythiourethane according to the invention