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Although there are several methods of 3D-printing metal objects, all of them involve the application of heat – which isn’t conducive to producing certain heat-sensitive electronics, among other things. A new gel, however, can be used to print such items at room temperature.

Created by a team of scientists at North Carolina State University, the material starts out as a solution consisting of copper microparticles suspended in water. Microparticles of another metal, known as eutectic gallium indium alloy (EGaIn) are then added, as is hydrochloric acid.

Continue reading “Revolutionary gel allows metal items to be 3D printed at room temperature” »

This metallic gel is made from a mixture of micron-scale copper particles suspended in water and a small amount of a liquid indium-gallium alloy.

The origins of three-dimensional (3D) printing can be traced back to the 1970s when Johannes F Gottwald patented the Liquid Metal Recorder. This device used continuous inkjet technology to create metal objects that could be removed and reused or melted down for printing again.

Continue reading “Scientists create highly conductive metallic gel for 3D printing at room temperature” »

Researchers have developed a metallic gel that is highly electrically conductive and can be used to print three-dimensional (3D) solid objects at room temperature. The paper, “Metallic Gels for Conductive 3D and 4D Printing,” has been published in the journal Matter.

“3D printing has revolutionized manufacturing, but we’re not aware of previous technologies that allowed you to print 3D metal objects at room temperature in a single step,” says Michael Dickey, co-corresponding author of a paper on the work and the Camille & Henry Dreyfus Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at North Carolina State University. “This opens the door to manufacturing a wide range of electronic components and devices.”

To create the metallic gel, the researchers start with a solution of micron-scale copper particles suspended in water. The researchers then add a small amount of an indium-gallium alloy that is liquid metal at room temperature. The resulting mixture is then stirred together.

A new way of 3D printing wood that takes advantage of warping could change how we build things in the future — an innovation that could potentially save us all time and money.

The challenge: Wood is made of fibers that absorb moisture like a sponge. If lumber isn’t dried properly, the wood will eventually shrink — bending or twisting in different directions depending on the orientation of the fibers.

Continue reading “3D-printed wood furniture could ship flat, then dry into shape” »

Cultured meat starts with the extraction of cells from an animal’s tissue, be it a pig, cow, chicken, fish, or any other animal we consume. The cell extraction doesn’t kill or even harm the animal. The cells are mixed with a cocktail of nutrients, oxygen, and moisture inside large bioreactors. Mimicking the environment inside an animal’s body, the bioreactors are kept at a warm temperature, and the cells inside divide, multiply, and mature. Waste products are regularly removed to keep the environment pure.

Once the cells have reached maturity—that is, grown into small chunks of muscle-like material—they’re harvested from the bioreactors to be refined and shaped into a final product. This can involve anything from extrusion cooking and molding to 3D printing and adding in artificial fat.

JBS says the factory it’s building in Spain will be able to produce more than 1,000 metric tons of cultivated beef per year, and could expand capacity to 4,000 metric tons per year in the medium term. That’s smaller than Believer Meats’ facility in the US, which will have an annual production capacity of 10,000 metric tons. But what’s noteworthy about the JBS factory is that it’s focused on producing beef.

New angles and concepts in 3D printing are always welcome, and we haven’t seen anything quite like [Horn & Rhode]’s 3D prints that do not look anything like 3D prints, accomplished with an experimental tool called HueForge. The concept behind it is simple (though not easy), and the results can be striking when applied correctly.

The idea is this: colored, melted filament is, in a sense, not that different from colored paint. Both come in various colors, are applied in thin layers, and blend into new colors when they do so. When applied correctly, striking imagery can emerge. An example is shown here, but there are several more both on the HueForge project page as well as models on Printables.

Instead of the 3D printer producing a 3D object, the printer creates a (mostly) flat image similar in structure to a lithophane. But unlike a lithophane, these blend colors in clever and effective ways by printing extremely thin layers in highly precise ways.

In situ bioprinting, which involves 3D printing biocompatible structures and tissues directly within the body, has seen steady progress over the past few years. In a recent study, a team of researchers developed a handheld bioprinter that addresses key limitations of previous designs, i.e., the ability to print multiple materials and control the physicochemical properties of printed tissues. This device will pave the way for a wide variety of applications in regenerative medicine, drug development and testing, and custom orthotics and prosthetics.

The emergence of regenerative medicine has resulted in substantial improvements in the lives of patients worldwide through the replacement, repair, or regeneration of damaged tissues and organs. It is a promising solution to challenges such as the lack of organ donors or transplantation-associated risks. One of the major advancements in regenerative medicine is on-site (or “in situ”) bioprinting, an extension of 3D printing technology, which is used to directly synthesize tissues and organs within the human body. It shows great potential in facilitating the repair and regeneration of defective tissues and organs.

Although significant progress has been made in this field, currently used in situ bioprinting technologies are not devoid of limitations. For instance, certain devices are only compatible with specific types of bioink, while others can only create small patches of tissue at a time. Moreover, their designs are usually complex, making them unaffordable and restricting their applications.

Scientists from the NIHR Great Ormond Street Hospital Biomedical Research Centre (a collaboration between GOSH and UCL), London, and University of Padova, Italy, have shown for the first time how 3D printing can be achieved inside “mini-organs” growing in hydrogels—controlling their shape, activity, and even forcing tissue to grow into “molds.”

This can help teams study cells and organs more accurately, create realistic models of organs and disease, and even better understand how cancer spreads through different tissues.

A particularly promising area of research at the Zayed Centre for Research (a partnership between Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH), GOSH Charity and University College London Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health (UCL GOS ICH)) is organoid science—the creation of micro-versions of organs like the stomach, the intestines and the lungs.

A novel 3D printing method called high-throughput combinatorial printing (HTCP) has been created that significantly accelerates the discovery and production of new materials.

The process involves mixing multiple aerosolized nanomaterial inks during printing, which allows for fine control over the printed materials’ architecture and local compositions. This method produces materials with gradient compositions and properties and can be applied to a wide range of substances including metals, semiconductors.

Semiconductors are a type of material that has electrical conductivity between that of a conductor (such as copper) and an insulator (such as rubber). Semiconductors are used in a wide range of electronic devices, including transistors, diodes, solar cells, and integrated circuits. The electrical conductivity of a semiconductor can be controlled by adding impurities to the material through a process called doping. Silicon is the most widely used material for semiconductor devices, but other materials such as gallium arsenide and indium phosphide are also used in certain applications.