Engineers at the University of California, Davis, have developed a new approach to 3D printing that allows printing of finely tuned flexible materials. By using a droplet-based, multiphase microfluidic system, the team was able to efficiently print materials with potential applications in soft robotics, tissue engineering and wearable technology. The work is published June 15 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

In traditional extrusion-based 3D printers, printing material is pushed through a nozzle and added to the structure repeatedly until the product is complete. While this is efficient and cost-effective, it makes it hard to print structures made of more than one material, and getting the right amount of softness can be challenging.

Jiandi Wan, assistant professor of chemical engineering at UC Davis, noticed that this nozzle was similar to the glass capillary microfluidic devices that his lab studies. These devices have multiple nozzles placed inside of each other.

“Most extrusion-based 3D printers use very simple nozzles and since we had already developed these glass microfluidics, we thought, ‘why not apply it to 3D printing?’” said Wan.

Wan, UC Davis graduate student Hing Jii Mea and Luis Delgadillo, University of Rochester, developed a device that uses a multiphase drip system to encapsulate droplets of a water-based solution containing polyethylene glycol diacrylate, or PEGDA, inside of a common silicon-based organic polymer called polydimethylsiloxane, or PDMS. The PDMS flows around a dripper, which makes tiny droplets of the PEGDA that it evenly inserts into the PDMS as both materials flow onto the structure that’s being printed.

The resulting structure looks like a Pac-Man maze, with little dots of PEGDA droplets surrounded by PDMS. Once the PEGDA diffuses out of the droplets, it chemically softens the PDMS, making the structure more flexible.

“You can also encapsulate other chemicals in the droplets to make the overall matrix much softer or harder,” Wan said.

Structure flexibility can be tuned

The team also showed that droplet-based 3D printing can be used to produce flexible porous objects, and constructs with encapsulated polymer particles and metal droplets. In addition, structure flexibility can be easily tuned by changing the droplet size and flow rate. This gives researchers a wide range of options to truly design their structure and vary flexibility to fit their needs in a way that’s difficult with the conventional nozzle-based method.

Though microfluidic-based 3D printing has been done before, Wan’s group is the first to use this droplet-based multiphase emulsion approach. The team is already looking into potential applications and learning what other combinations of materials they can use to change the mechanical or chemical properties of 3D printed products. They think the work could have applications in bioprinting and wearable electronics, like smart fabrics.

“I think this will open a new area of research, since applying the established microfluidics technology to 3D printing represents a new direction to go,” he said.

Media contact(s)

Jiandi Wan, Chemical Engineering, jdwan@ucdavis.edu

Andy Fell, News and Media Relations, 530-752-4533, ahfell@ucdavis.edu

Media Resources

• Read the paper (PNAS)

Source: New Technique Allows 3D Printing of Flexible Materials | UC Davis

Abstract

We develop and characterize a biomaterial formulation and robotic methods tailored for intracorporeal tissue engineering (TE) via direct-write (DW) 3D printing. Intracorporeal TE is defined as the biofabrication of 3D TE scaffolds inside of a living patient, in a minimally invasive manner. A biomaterial for intracorporeal TE requires to be 3D printable and crosslinkable via mechanisms that are safe to native tissues and feasible at physiological temperature (37 °C). The cell-laden biomaterial (bioink) preparation and bioprinting methods must support cell viability. Additionally, the biomaterial and bioprinting method must enable the spatially accurate intracorporeal 3D delivery of the biomaterial, and the biomaterial must adhere to or integrate into the native tissue. Current biomaterial formulations do not meet all the presumed intracorporeal DW TE requirements. We demonstrate that a specific formulation of gelatin methacryloyl (GelMA)/Laponite^®/methylcellulose (GLM) biomaterial system can be 3D printed at physiological temperature and crosslinked using visible light to construct 3D TE scaffolds with clinically relevant dimensions and consistent structures. Cell viability of 71-77% and consistent mechanical properties over 21 days are reported. Rheological modifiers, Laponite^® and methylcellulose, extend the degradation time of the scaffolds. The DW modality enables the piercing of the soft tissue and over-extrusion of the biomaterial into the tissue, creating a novel interlocking mechanism with soft, hydrated native tissue mimics and animal muscle with a 3.5-4 fold increase in the biomaterial/tissue adhesion strength compared to printing on top of the tissue. The developed GLM biomaterial and robotic interlocking mechanism pave the way towards intracorporeal TE.

Source: Direct-write 3D printing and characterization of a GelMA-based biomaterial for intracorporeal tissue engineering – IOPscience

It might soon be relatively trivial to make soft robots — at least, if you have a 3D printer handy. UC San Diego researchers have devised a way to 3D-print insect-like flexible robots cheaply, quickly and without using exotic equipment. The trick was to print “flexoskeletons,” or rigid materials 3D-printed on to flexible and thin polycarbonate sheets. Much like insects, there are features that increase rigidity only in specific areas — a contrast with conventional soft robots that often have soft features tacked on to solid bodies.

Each flexoskeleton component takes about 10 minutes to print, and a completely assembled bot should be ready in less than two hours. An individual part costs less than $1 — the processing power, sensors and battery are likely to be the most expensive parts.

This will initially help researchers build robots quickly and easily, but the final aim is to mass-produce robots without human involvement. That could lead to robot swarms that can accomplish tasks at least as well as large, monolithic machines, but with lower costs and less risk.

Source: Scientists can 3D print insect-like robots in minutes | Engadget

Apparently you can use textured sheets on your 3d printer’s print bed to imprint that texture on the first layer of your print. Sounds obvious right? Well, what if that textured sheet is fine enough to give an irridescent or holographic effect? Yup, that works too!

“Kryvian” shared this example where you can clearly see the original sheet they used, and then the resulting effect on prints. Simply stunning. Be sure to click through all 4 videos to see the full results.

In the Reddit thread, they share that they purchased the sheet from “Tectonitor”. After some googling I found this shop, though I can not vouch for the shop itself. Please note that the price is in Taiwanese dollars, so it converts to roughly $20 bucks USD.

Source: This Clever Trick Embeds Holographic Patterns In Your 3D Prints

Simpson had bought a 3D printer for the lab in 2017. He hoped to use it to build custom parts that kept organisms alive inside of the NMR spectrometer for his research.

But the commercial resin he needed for high-quality light projection 3D printing (where light is used to form a solid) of those parts was expensive.

This could be America’s smallest restaurant

The dominant material for light projection printing is liquid plastic, which can cost upward of $500 a liter, according to Simpson.

Simpson closely analyzed the resin and spotted a connection. The molecules making up the commercial plastic resin were similar to fats found in ordinary cooking oil.

“The thought came to us. Could we use cooking oil and turn it into resin for 3D printing?” Simpson said.

Only one restaurant responded — McDonald’s

What came next was the hardest part of the two-year experiment for Simpson and his team of 10 students — getting a large sample batch of used cooking oil.

“We reached out to all of the fast-food restaurants around us. They all said no,” said Simpson.

Except for McDonald’s (MCD).

In the summer of 2017, the students went to a McDonald’s location near the campus in Toronto, Ontario, that had agreed to give them 10 liters of waste oil.

Back in the lab, the oil was filtered to take out chunks of food particles.

[…]

The team successfully printed a high-quality butterfly with details as minute as 100 micrometers in size.

A 3D printed butterbly made from McDonald’s waste cooking oil.

“We did analysis on the butterfly. It felt rubbery to touch, with a waxy surface that repelled water,” said Simpson. He described the butterfly as “structurally stable.” It didn’t break apart and held up at room temperature. “We thought you could possibly 3D print anything you like with the oil,” he said.

The experiment yielded a commercially viable resin that Simpson estimates could be sourced as cheaply as 30 cents a liter of waste oil.

Simpson was equally excited about another benefit of the butterfly the team had created.”The butterfly is essentially made from fat, which means it is biodegradable,” he said.

To test this, he buried a sample butterfly in soil and found that 20% of it disappeared in a two-week period.

“The concept of sustainability has been underplayed in 3D printing,” said Tim Greene, a research director for global research firm IDC who specializes in the 3D printing market. “The melted plastic currently being used as resin is not so great for the environment.”

Source: A new use for McDonald’s used cooking oil: 3D printing – CNN

Researchers at EPFL have developed a new, high-precision method for 3D-printing small, soft objects. The process, which takes less than 30 seconds from start to finish, has potential applications in a wide range of fields, including 3D bioprinting.

It all starts with a translucent liquid. Then, as if by magic, darker spots begin to form in the small, spinning container until, barely half a minute later, the finished product takes shape. This groundbreaking 3D-printing method, developed by researchers at EPFL’s Laboratory of Applied Photonics Devices (LAPD), can be used to make tiny objects with unprecedented precision and resolution – all in record time. The team has published its findings in the journal Nature Communications, and a spin-off, Readily3D, has been set up to develop and market the system.

The technology could have innovative applications in a wide range of fields, but its advantages over existing methods – the ability to print solid parts of different textures – make it ideally suited for medicine and biology. The process could be used, for instance, to make soft objects such as tissue, organs, hearing aids and mouthguards.

“Conventional 3D printing techniques, known as additive manufacturing, build parts layer by layer,” explains Damien Loterie, the CEO of Readily3D. “The problem is that soft objects made that way quickly fall apart.” What’s more, the process can be used to make delicate cell-laden scaffolds in which cells can develop in a pressure-free 3D environment. The researchers teamed up with a surgeon to test 3D-printed arteries made using the technique. “The trial results were extremely encouraging,” says Loterie.

Hardened by light

The new technique draws on the principles of tomography, a method used mainly in medical imaging to build a model of an object based on surface scans.

The printer works by sending a laser through the translucent gel – either a biological gel or liquid plastic, as required. “It’s all about the light,” explains Paul Delrot, Readily3D’s CTO. “The laser hardens the liquid through a process of polymerization. Depending on what we’re building, we use algorithms to calculate exactly where we need to aim the beams, from what angles, and at what dose.”

The system is currently capable of making two-centimeter structures with a precision of 80 micrometers, about the same as the diameter of a strand of hair. But as the team develops new devices, they should be able to build much bigger objects, potentially up to 15 centimeters. “The process could also be used to quickly build small silicone or acrylic parts that don’t need finishing after printing,” says Christophe Moser, who heads the LAPD. Interior design could be a potentially lucrative market for the new printer.

References“High-resolution tomographic volumetric additive manufacturing”, Damien Loterie, Paul Delrot, Christophe Moser, published in Nature Communication on February 12, 2020.

Source: Printing tiny, high-precision objects in a matter of seconds – EPFL

For the first time ever, meat was created in space — but no animals were harmed in the making of this 3D bioprinted “space beef.”

Aleph Farms, an Israeli food company, announced today (Oct. 7) that its experiment aboard the International Space Station resulted in the first-ever lab-grown meat in space. The company focuses on growing cultivated beef steaks, or growing an entire piece of real, edible meat out of just a couple of cells, in this case, bovine cell spheroids, in a lab.

On the space station, the experiment involved growing a piece of meat by mimicking a cow’s natural muscle-tissue regeneration process. Aleph Farms collaborated with the Russian company 3D Bioprinting Solutions and two U.S.-based food companies to test this method in space.

Video: Space Beef: Growing Meat in Space Explained
More: The Evolution of Space Food in Pictures

(Image credit: Rocosmos)

On Sept. 26, the team established a proof of concept when the astronauts performing the test were able to produce a small piece of cow muscle tissue on the space station. The experiment took place inside of a 3D bioprinter developed by 3D Bioprinting Solutions. Bioprinting is a process in which biomaterials, like animal cells, are mixed with growth factors and the material “bioink,” and “printed” into a layered structure. In this case, the resulting structure is a piece of muscle tissue.

The “3D bioprinter is equipped with a magnetic force which aggregated the cells into one small-scaled tissue, which is what meat is constructed by,” Yoav Reisler, an external relations manager at Aleph Farms, told Space.com in an email.

But, while 3D bioprinting has been used and tested on Earth for things like producing cartilage tissue, it works a little differently in space. “Maturing of bioprinted organs and tissues in zero gravity proceeds much faster than in Earth gravity conditions. The tissue is being printed from all sides simultaneously, like making a snowball, while most other bioprinters create it layer by layer. On Earth, the cells always fall downward. In zero gravity, they hang in space and interfere only with each other. Layer by layer printing in gravity requires a support structure. Printing in zero gravity allows tissue to be created only with cell material, without any intermediate support,” Reisler added.

 

(Image credit: 3D Printing Solutions)

The reasoning behind Aleph Farm’s efforts to produce “slaughter-free meat in space,” as the company describes it, is because of climate change, according to a press release sent by the company to Space.com. Animal farming, as it is noted in the 2019 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change special report, with its requirement for huge amounts of water and energy, contributes in a significant way to climate change.

“Our planet is on fire and we have no other one today. Our primary goal is to make sure it remains the same blue planet we know also with our next generations,” Reisler said.

“In space, we don’t have 10,000 or 15,000 Liter (3962.58 Gallon) of water available to produce one Kg (2.205 Pound) of beef,” Didier Toubia, Co-Founder and CEO of Aleph Farms, said in the release. “This joint experiment marks a significant first step toward achieving our vision to ensure food security for generations to come, while preserving our natural resources.”

The company aims to build upon the success of this proof of concept experiment and, within a few years or so, make cultivated beef steaks available on Earth through “bio-farms” where they will grow this meat, Reisler added.

Source: International Space Station Crew 3D-Prints Meat In Space For The First Time! – Science

Scientists at EPFL and University Medical Center Utrecht have developed an optical system that can bioprint complex, highly viable living tissue in “just a few seconds.” It would represent a breakthrough compared to the clunky, layer-based processes of today.

The approach, volumetric bioprinting, forms tissue by projecting a laser down a spinning tube containing hydrogel full of stem cells. You can shape the resulting tissue simply by focusing the laser’s energy on specific locations to solidify them, creating a useful 3D shape within seconds. After that, it’s a matter of introducing endothelial cells to add vessels to the tissue.

The resulting tissues are currently just a few inches across. That’s still enough to be “clinically useful,” EPFL said, and has already been used to print heart-like valves, a complex femur part and a meniscus. It can create interlocking structures, too.

While this definitely isn’t ready for real-world use, the applications are fairly self-evident. EPFL imagines a new wave of “personalized, functional” organs produced at “unprecedented speed.” This could be helpful for implants and repairs, and might greatly reduce the temptation to use animal testing — you’d just need to produce organs to simulate effects. This might be as much an ethics breakthrough as it is a technical one.

Source: Scientists bioprint living tissue in a matter of seconds

The process of printing the heart involved a biopsy of the fatty tissue that surrounds abdominal organs. Researchers separated the cells in the tissue from the rest of the contents, namely the extracellular matrix linking the cells. The cells were reprogrammed to become stem cells with the ability to differentiate into heart cells; the matrix was processed into a personalized hydrogel that served as the printing “ink.”

The cells and hydrogel were first used to create heart patches with blood vessels and, from there, an entire heart.

“At this stage, our 3D heart is small, the size of a rabbit’s heart,” Dvir said. “But larger human hearts require the same technology.”

Source: 3D-printed heart made using a human patient’s cells – CNN

A new 3D-printing technique could render a three-dimensional object in minutes instead of hours—at up to 100 times current speeds. The experimental approach uses a vat of resin and some clever tricks with UV and blue LED lights (no lasers needed) to accelerate the printing process.

The technique looks almost like a time-reverse film loop of an object dissolving in a reservoir of acid. But instead of acid, this reservoir contains a specially-designed resin that hardens when exposed to a particular shade of blue light. Crucially, that hardening (the technical term is polymerization) does not take place in the presence of a certain wavelength of UV light.

The resin is also particularly absorbent at the wavelengths of both the blue and UV light. So the intensity of UV or blue light going in translates directly to the depth to which light will penetrate into the resin bath. The brighter the light beam, the further it penetrates and the further its effects (whether inhibiting polymerization in the case of UV light, or causing it in the case of blue light) will be felt in the bath along that particular light path.

Timothy Scott, associate professor of chemical engineering at the University of Michigan, says the way to get a 3D-printed object out of this process is to send UV light through a glass-bottomed basin of resin. Then, at the same time, through that same glass window, send patterns of bright and dim blue light.

If this printing process used only the blue light, it would immediately harden the first bit of resin it encounters in the basin—the stuff just inside the glass. And so each successive layer of the object to be printed would need to be scraped or pulled off the window’s surface—a time-consuming and potentially destructive process.

“We use the [UV] wavelength to prevent the resin from polymerizing against the projection window,” Scott says. “But we can change the intensity of the inhibiting wavelength, that in turn can thicken up…the region that doesn’t polymerize. We can go to hundreds of microns comfortably, approaching or even exceeding a millimeter, so that’s getting quite thick. We can do that across not only the entire region of our bath, but we can do it selectively. By, again, patterning the intensity that we’re projecting into the vat.”

Which is why the UV light, perhaps the key innovation of the new research, potentially streamlines the entire light-resin 3D-printing process, also called 3D stereolithography.

To be clear, other 3D-stereolithography printing processes and even startup companies are out there in the world. What’s new with the Michigan group’s research (published in Science Advances earlier this month) is the UV light inhibitor that not only prevents the hardened resin from sticking to the window but also can be used in concert with the blue light to sculpt 3D surfaces and contours of hardened resin in the bath.

In a sense, Scott says, the new stereolithography process is really one of the very first truly 3D printing processes—in that it prints not just a series of single 2D layers but rather entire 3D wedges of material in one pass.

“That is straight-up unique, the ability to pattern a volume,” Scott says. “Patterning in 2D is easy, patterning in 3D is nontrivial.”

Source: This 3D Printing Technique Is 100 Times Faster Than Standard 3D Printers – IEEE Spectrum

Advanced car personalization running on Twikbot®

Car personalization has been popular ever since. In which level it was applied depended on many factors like the availability of options from the car manufacturer itself or the artistic skills of some of its customers.

Today, car manufacturers already offer a wide range of pre-defined options. In the end though, options are limited to colors, finnishes and interior materials. This widely known car-configuration is already adapted within the automotive industry.

Beyond full-option

To stand out from the competition car brands are emerging towards more complex customization options. With new technologies like 3D printing and legacy manufacturing technologies like lasercutting and CNC, car parts can get personalized on a more advanced level.

MINI decided to tap into this, and became a pioneer in offering next level car individualization through an online platform where the end-consumer can personalize and design car parts for their own vehicle.

In order to enable personalized production at scale, the MINI yours customised experience runs on Twikit’s Twikbot platform technology. Our universal software supports the full customization journey, from product input, where all personalization assets are created, to front-end customer experience and the right output for production.

Source: Case – MINI Yours Customised – powered by Twikit

The creators of the world’s first 3D-printed steel bridge, a 40-foot stainless steel structure titled simply “The Bridge” that looks tantalizingly otherworldly thanks to its unique construction methods, say it is now ready for installation in Amsterdam following its ongoing week on show at the Dutch Design Week from Oct. 20-28.

The team at MX3D, which originally planned to build the Joris Laarman Lab-designed bridge in mid-air over a canal but later opted to construct it in a controlled environment away from pedestrians, told Gizmodo in a statement that it is now ready to commence the structure’s final installation in Amsterdam’s famed De Wallen red-light district. They’ve also shared a number of photos from the finished bridge, which is designed to look like two billowing sheets connected by organic curves of steel, on display at the festival. It looks fantastic:

As the construction method is new and has not previously been used in any such large-scale project, MX3D worked with Amsterdam officials to develop a new safety standard and have also coordinated with partners including the UK’s Alan Turing Institute to equip it with a network of sensors. MX3D told Gizmodo that once in place the structure will be capable of collecting data on “bridge traffic, structural integrity, and the surrounding neighborhood and environment,” with the information being “used as input for a ‘digital twin’ of the bridge” that will be monitored to detect any safety issues. A steel deck on the bottom of the bridge should also provide additional stability.

Source: These New Photos of the World’s First 3D-Printed Steel Bridge Are Stunning

Wedding proposals are just one of the many minefields you have to navigate on social media platforms, and Ivan Miranda isn’t making things any easier. He’s designed and built an autonomous printer that can draw messages in sand, so now’s probably a good time to brace yourself for an endless barrage of “will you marry me?” beach proposals clogging up your feeds.

Miranda’s sand printer uses techniques borrowed from the classic dot-matrix printers that were a hallmark of home publishing in the ‘80s and ‘90s. An over-sized print heads travels back and forth between sets of large wheels that slowly roll the entire printer across the beach. As the print head moves, an etching tool lowers and raises to carve lines in the sand that eventually form longer messages.

It’s a slow process, especially for those of us who’ve become accustomed to speedy laser printers churning out multiple pages per minute. But the results are far more Instagram-friendly than trying to write an endearing message in the sand with a stick.

Source: This Sand Printer Seems Perfect for Beach Wedding Proposals

The city of Eindhoven soon hopes to boast the world’s first commercially-developed 3D-printed homes, an endeavor known as Project Milestone.

Construction on the first home begins this year and five houses will be on the rental market by 2019, project organizers say. Within a week of releasing images of the new homes, 20 families expressed interest in dwelling in these postmodern pods, according to the project website.

“The first aim of the project is to build five great houses that are comfortable to live in and will have happy occupants,” developers say. Beyond that, they hope to promote 3D concrete printing science and technology so that printed housing “will soon be a reality that is widely adopted.”

The “printer” in this case is a big robotic arm that will shape cement of a light, whipped-cream consistency, based on an architect’s design. The cement is layered for strength.

Source: The first 3D printed houses will be built in the Netherlands this year — Quartz

NANTES, France (Reuters) – Researchers have unveiled what they billed as the world’s first 3D-printed house to serve as a home in the French city of Nantes, with the first tenants due to move in by June.

Academics at the University of Nantes who led the project said it was the first house built in situ for human habitation using a robot 3D-printer.

The robot, known as BatiPrint3D, uses a special polymer material that should keep the building insulated effectively for a century.

It took BatiPrint3D around 18 days to complete its part of the work on the house – creating hollow walls that were subsequently filled with concrete for insulation.

“Is this the future? It’s a solution and a constructive principle that is interesting because we create the house directly on site and in addition thanks to the robot, we are able to create walls with complex shapes,” said Benoit Furet, a professor who worked on the project.

The 95 square meter (1000 square feet), five-room house will be allocated to a local family which qualifies for social housing, authorities said.

The Y-shaped home is equipped with multiple sensors that monitor air quality, humidity and temperature, as well as equipment to evaluate and analyze the thermal properties of the building.

Researchers believe this technology will enable tenants to save on energy costs.

Authorities in Nantes are planning further 3D-printed building projects, including a public reception building and a housing estate.

Source: 3D-printed public housing unveiled in France

Scientists from the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have developed a way to print 3-D structures composed entirely of liquids. Using a modified 3-D printer, they injected threads of water into silicone oil — sculpting tubes made of one liquid within another liquid.

They envision their all-liquid material could be used to construct liquid electronics that power flexible, stretchable devices. The scientists also foresee chemically tuning the tubes and flowing molecules through them, leading to new ways to separate molecules or precisely deliver nanoscale building blocks to under-construction compounds.

The researchers have printed threads of water between 10 microns and 1 millimeter in diameter, and in a variety of spiraling and branching shapes up to several meters in length. What’s more, the material can conform to its surroundings and repeatedly change shape.

“It’s a new class of material that can reconfigure itself, and it has the potential to be customized into liquid reaction vessels for many uses, from chemical synthesis to ion transport to catalysis,” said Tom Russell, a visiting faculty scientist in Berkeley Lab’s Materials Sciences Division. He developed the material with Joe Forth, a postdoctoral researcher in the Materials Sciences Division, as well as other scientists from Berkeley Lab and several other institutions. They report their research March 24 in the journal Advanced Materials.

The material owes its origins to two advances: learning how to create liquid tubes inside another liquid, and then automating the process.

These schematics show the printing of water in oil using a nanoparticle supersoap. Gold nanoparticles in the water combine with polymer ligands in the oil to form an elastic film (nanoparticle supersoap) at the interface, locking the structure in place. (Credit: Berkeley Lab)

For the first step, the scientists developed a way to sheathe tubes of water in a special nanoparticle-derived surfactant that locks the water in place. The surfactant, essentially soap, prevents the tubes from breaking up into droplets. Their surfactant is so good at its job, the scientists call it a nanoparticle supersoap.

The supersoap was achieved by dispersing gold nanoparticles into water and polymer ligands into oil. The gold nanoparticles and polymer ligands want to attach to each other, but they also want to remain in their respective water and oil mediums. The ligands were developed with help from Brett Helms at the Molecular Foundry, a DOE Office of Science User Facility located at Berkeley Lab.

In practice, soon after the water is injected into the oil, dozens of ligands in the oil attach to individual nanoparticles in the water, forming a nanoparticle supersoap. These supersoaps jam together and vitrify, like glass, which stabilizes the interface between oil and water and locks the liquid structures in position.

“This stability means we can stretch water into a tube, and it remains a tube. Or we can shape water into an ellipsoid, and it remains an ellipsoid,” said Russell. “We’ve used these nanoparticle supersoaps to print tubes of water that last for several months.”

Next came automation. Forth modified an off-the-shelf 3-D printer by removing the components designed to print plastic and replacing them with a syringe pump and needle that extrudes liquid. He then programmed the printer to insert the needle into the oil substrate and inject water in a predetermined pattern.

“We can squeeze liquid from a needle, and place threads of water anywhere we want in three dimensions,” said Forth. “We can also ping the material with an external force, which momentarily breaks the supersoap’s stability and changes the shape of the water threads. The structures are endlessly reconfigurable.”

Source: Berkeley Lab Scientists Print All-Liquid 3-D Structures

Typically, when we see 3D-printed replicas as large as this 2.3-foot long Millennium Falcon, they’re assembled from hundreds of smaller 3D-printed parts. But YouTube’s stonefx83 didn’t want to go to all that trouble, so he simply scaled up Andrew Askedall’s 3D model of the Falcon, and then let his printer run for over nine days and 21 hours straight.

The machine consumed over six-and-a-half pounds of plastic filament in the process, and thankfully didn’t screw up once, which would have required the entire print to be restarted from scratch. Oh, that’s why no one 3D-prints giant models like this in one pass.

Source: It Took Almost 10 Days to 3D-Print This Giant Millennium Falcon Model

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Source: Bestel uw 3D voedsel Printer |byFlow

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Forget those long lines at the pharmacy: Someday soon, you might be making your own medicines at home. That’s because researchers have tailored a 3D printer to synthesize pharmaceuticals and other chemicals from simple, widely available starting compounds fed into a series of water bottle–size reactors. The work, they say, could digitize chemistry, allowing users to synthesize almost any compound anywhere in the world.
[…]
In today’s issue of Science, Cronin and his colleagues report printing a series of interconnected reaction vessels that carry out four different chemical reactions involving 12 separate steps, from filtering to evaporating different solutions. By adding different reagents and solvents at the right times and in a precise order, they were able to convert simple, widely available starting compounds into a muscle relaxant called baclofen. And by designing reactionware to carry out different chemical reactions with different reagents, they produced other medicines, including an anticonvulsant and a drug to fight ulcers and acid reflux.

Source: You could soon be manufacturing your own drugs—thanks to 3D printing | Science | AAAS