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MIT has announced that its researchers succeeded in updating the 3D printer to facilitate the production of 3D objects using sustainable materials.
Researchers say the new device will also improve the overall production flow.
3D printing enables manufacturers to produce complex objects onsite and quickly. Setting up the printer, however, is the most laborious step in the process.
Automating the production of 3D objects from nonrecyclable materials took a detailed series of trials and errors to perfect. On an average, “one must typically set up to 100 parameters in software that controls how the printer will extrude the material as it fabricates an object…”
Featured Video RelatedUpdating the 3D printer
As the composition of renewable and recyclable materials varies, printing with them presents a variety of obstacles. Users had to manually input these parameters. Now, “the printer can figure out how to print those materials by itself,” says senior author Neil Gershenfeld.
First, researchers adjusted the hardware such as the fused filament fabrication (FFF) used in “rapid prototyping,” which was the original purpose of the 3D printer: to get to a final product more quickly.
Next, they added three instruments to the machine’s extruder as it sets the parameters for a given object and material. The most important variables in this case are flow state and temperature.
Researchers developed a 20-minute test, which was “really difficult to figure out,” first author Jake Reed admitted, because of these variables.
“Trying to find the limits of the extruder means that you are going to break the extruder pretty often while you are testing it. The notion of turning the heater off and just passively taking measurements was the ‘aha’ moment,” says Read.
That simple solution made it possible to successfully print complex objects made of six different materials, “several of which were bio-based.”
The printer is also environmentally friendly
Though engineers created the 3D printer for “rapid prototyping,” it now fabricates everything from eyeglasses to footwear. Its most interesting application, however, might be in the medical field. Its value went from $713.3 million in 2016 to a projected $2.5 billion in 2025.
3D printers make tissues, organoids, surgical tools, and prosthetics. Rather than using plastic or metal, the medical field uses a special kind of 3D printer to “bioprint” or “layer” organic materials as the 3D printer creates an object from a digital file which is then built layer by layer.
The 3D printer is even able to print chocolate, so this new and improved 3D printer stands to help industries work more efficiently with more materials, specifically ones that don’t damage the environment.
“The goal is to make 3D printing more sustainable,” Neil Gershenfeld senior author stated.
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