By Tess Jusse
Standard 3D printing requires a huge, expensive machine, but what if you could put that technology in your pocket? Researchers have used a familiar tool – pen har – to create its first type of process, which converts flat ink drawings into 3D objects when the faults are called into a particular solution. Advanced 2D printing can easily create everything from furniture to solar panels.
“This work is magnificent,” says Michael Dickey, a chemical engineer at North Carolina State University who is not involved in the new research. “You can draw something in 2D, ship it, and then convert it to 3D, and use a pen to do that, that’s great.”
To advance, Sumin Lee and CO Woo Song, bioengineers at Seoul National University, and colleagues started with a pen that looked like a dry eraser marker. They filled the execution in one of the two inks. One, colored red in the video above, contains a compound called a surfactant, which makes the ink less adhesive. Others, colored black, have no surfactant. This ink “anchor” is drawn on the surface on which it is drawn – in this case, a rock – helps to stabilize the red ink as it transforms into its 3D shape.
When researchers dip the drawing – in this case, a flower – into the water, they apply black ink. But the red ink film remains floating, thanks to a phenomenon known as capillary-induced peeling, in which water enters between the low-stick ink and the rock. The ink is hydrophobic – it repels water – so the low-stick ink floats to the surface in a 3D shape thanks to the tension between the film and the water.
But when scientists tried to remove the finished product from the water, they were quick to point out: fragile 3D film would not stay in shape. So they tweaked the chemistry of both inks by adding Lohia microparticles and dipping the drawing in a solution containing potassium persephate instead of plain water. Coat with potassium persephate iron and react strongly after 3 minutes after 3 minutes submersion, researchers report today that Science progress.
Researchers say that ink can work in existing technology that produces printed object objects, such as roll-to-roll systems that print newspapers. Items will be printed in bulk in 2D, then converted to 3D in a bath of potassium perfume solution. It can allow engineers to create everything from wine glasses to kitchen tables as flat objects using the existing, efficient mode of production.
The team acknowledged that technology needs work. In order for electricity to be used to create such objects, such as solar panels, for example, it needs to be able to carry powered components.
Jennifer Lewis, an engineer at Harvard University who was not involved in the research, agrees. If the royal film could take an electronic circuit, “it would be powerful,” she says. Still, he says, the team’s approach to the field of 3D printing is an important advance.
“Apart from manufacturing, there’s something incomprehensible about putting paper on a pen,” says Jiun Kim, a materials scientist at Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology. He says, “People still like to draw things by hand; It’s fun to watch your drawings come alive. “I think this technology also has artistic value.”
