New synthetic resin - curing at the touch of a button

A novel method for curing of epoxy resins has been developed at TU Wien. Local UV flashes initiate a chemical cascade and cure the entire material. It may appear to be a nondescript, transparent, viscous liquid, but all you have to do is irradiate any part of it briefly with UV light and it changes completely. The new special resin formulation developed at TU Wien solidifies in seconds. This effect continues to spread outwards until the resin is completely solid, which takes a matter of seconds or minutes, regardless of its previous shape. This is referred to as frontal polymerisation. This reaction can be started at any point on the material and spreads automatically from there.