University of Florida engineers have developed a way for 3D printing called vapor-induced phase-separation 3D printing, or VIPS-3DP, to create single-material in addition to multi-material objects. The invention has the potential to advance the world of additive manufacturing.
Yong Huang, Ph. D., a professor in UF’s department of mechanical and aerospace engineering, said the printing process he and colleagues developed allows manufacturers to create custom-made objects economically and sustainably. The novel approach was reported Tuesday within the journal Nature Communications.
“It’s more economical and far simpler than current counterpart technologies,” he said. “It’s a reasonable process for printing advanced materials, including metals.”
To grasp the method, imagine using special eco-friendly liquids to make the “ink” for a 3D printer. These dissolvable polymer-based liquids can include metal or ceramic particles. While you print with this ink, a non-solvent vapor is released into the printing area. This vapor makes the liquid a part of the ink solidify, forsaking the solid material — called the vapor-induced phase-separation process.
Huang explained the method allows manufacturers to 3D print multi-material parts with spatially tunable, multi-scale porosity, which suggests creating structures which have different kinds of drugs at different locations and with varied levels of porousness.
The item’s porousness refers to it having tiny holes or gaps, and that is created by adjusting printing conditions and/or how much sacrificial material is used through the VIPS-3DP process. This might be useful for manufacturing things like porous medical implants or lightweight aerospace products.
“It is a promising method for creating metallic products that require different levels of porousness,” said Marc Sole-Gras, Ph.D., the primary writer of the paper and a former graduate student in Huang’s lab. “An excellent example of that is in bone tissue engineering. We will print an implant that’s appropriately porous to make sure it integrates with the encircling human cells.”
Along with requiring less investments in infrastructure, the VIPS-3DP process is a greener choice to traditional printing methods since it uses sustainable materials and fewer energy.
The UF-licensed technology has been granted two patents, and its development was supported through funding from federal agencies, including the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy.
