Greener Solutions

For this challenge, students worked with Autodesk to develop safer and more sustainable resins for 3D printing. The student team assessed the current formulas being used in the industry after being trained briefly in chemistry, toxicology and public health research. Proposed solutions include: replacing the photoinitiator (using curcumin and riboflavin), modifying acrylate-based resins (with triglycerides or chitosan), and using non-acyrlate resins via pH photoinitiation (with calcite or metal ligand complexes). ...

Designing next generation chemical preservatives for personal care and home care products with Beautycounter and Seventh Generation

Final presentation video

Final presentation slides

Final Report

Poster

Acrylates are used as very effective cross-linkers in the polymerization of liquid resins used in stereolithography (SLA) printing. When UV light is shown on reactive monomers or oligomers in the liquid resins, they bond together to form a solid object and a typical SLA printer will build up a solid object, layer by layer, using this chemical reaction.

Acrylates and methacrylates present some human and environmental health problems, however. In use in the baseline study resin these chemicals were shown to be skin and eye irritants, skin...

The Steelcase team focused on one area of the current plastic manufacturing process that would require changes to execute polymer modularity — additives. The team chose the colorants used for the polypropylene Node chair line as the baseline for substitution and as a test for the concept of modularity. These colorants can be hazardous. For example, carbon black, a common colorant, is a well-known occupational hazard and probable carcinogen. The team was faced with two distinct but entwined parts of the challenge: finding more benign materials, like...