New 3D Printing Method Is Simple, Sustainable, & Reversible

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Engineers on the UC San Diego have developed a 3D printing technique that’s extremely easy and sustainable, utilizing only a liquid polymer ink and a calcium chloride salt answer to print stable buildings. And what’s much more unimaginable than the simplicity of the brand new 3D printing technique is that it’s totally reversible, which might show to assist making the manufacturing of supplies extra sustainable and eco-friendly sooner or later.

UC San Diego Right this moment experiences that Jinhye Bae, the research’s senior creator, famous that “This is all done under ambient conditions, with no need for additional steps, specialized equipment, toxic chemicals, heat or pressure.” That contrasts significantly with the customary strategies for solidifying polymers, which normally require each energy-intensive procedures and harsh chemical compounds, so this new 3D printing technique might show to be a really sustainable one.

“To demonstrate the versatility of their method, the researchers printed structures out of PNIPAM inks containing other materials. For example, they printed an electrical circuit using an ink made of PNIPAM mixed with carbon nanotubes, which successfully powered a light bulb. This printed circuit could also be dissolved in fresh water, showcasing the potential for creating water-soluble and recyclable electronic components.” – UC San Diego Today

The group which developed this new 3D printing technique printed the outcomes of their work this previous Might within the journal Nature beneath the title “Sustainable 3D printing by reversible salting-out effects with aqueous salt solutions.” In that paper, the authors state that the brand new technique confirmed nice promise for being employed throughout quite a lot of completely different purposes, and confirmed potential “for implementing sustainable 3D printing.”

“Such an unprecedented printing approach using the PNIPAM-based system demonstrated strong potential for a wide range of applications, for instance, in the development of a water-soluble disposable recyclable electric circuit, a smart carrier for material delivering, and a multi-stage soft actuator capable of responding to environmental changes in salt concentrations on demand without requiring chemical modifications or compatibility constraints.”

Three of the authors, Jinhye Bae, Joseph Liu, and Donghwan Ji, filed a patent for the brand new course of via the UCSD Workplace of Innovation and Commercialization, so we might presumably see this sustainable 3D printing technique being put to work within the close to future.

Featured picture courtesy of Ji, D., Liu, J., Zhao, J. et al. Sustainable 3D printing by reversible salting-out results with aqueous salt options. Nat Commun 15, 3925 (2024).