Technology Licensing Opportunity: True Silicone DLP Printing Platform

Los Alamos National Laboratory is offering a technology licensing opportunity for the True Silicone DLP Printing Platform. This innovative platform enables the production of genuine silicone parts, gaskets, lattices, prosthetic components, and microfluidic devices using standard desktop DLP printers, replacing the need for specialized extrusion tools. The system uses a proprietary printable resin that blends a polymerizable scaffold with a curable siloxane component, which are combined with a photoinitiator and light-absorbing dye to precisely control polymerization.

During the printing process, a standard DLP printer creates complex geometries layer by layer. The printed part is then heated to crosslink the siloxane oligomers, forming a continuous silicone network. Finally, a solvent wash removes the sacrificial acrylic scaffold, resulting in a pure silicone object with tunable porosity and geometric complexity, free of metal catalyst residues. This platform delivers materials whose polymer backbone consists solely of silicon-oxygen bonds, offering enhanced chemical compatibility, biocompatibility, mechanical performance, and aging stability compared to conventional pseudo-silicone alternatives.

The workflow is compatible with low-cost commodity printers, supports high throughput production, and allows for adjustable mechanical and porous properties by varying resin compositions. Market applications include medical and consumer health products, stretchable electronics, microfluidics, aerospace components, optics, and consumer goods. The sacrificial scaffold technique may also extend to printing other challenging materials by photopolymer methods.