3D ice printing (3D-ICE) is a novel strategy for creating micro-scale buildings with exact inner voids and channels, addressing challenges in conventional additive manufacturing. Developed by Carnegie Mellon College professors Philip LeDuc and Burak Ozdoganlar, this methodology employs a drop-on-demand system the place a piezoelectric inkjet nozzle ejects water droplets onto a platform beneath freezing temperature, forming ice buildings upon contact.
This system permits for managed deposition of water droplets, creating easy partitions, transitions, and branches within the ensuing ice buildings. The geometry of those buildings might be finely tuned by adjusting droplet deposition charge, floor temperature, and workspace circumstances. By angling the construct platform, the freeze entrance rotates, enabling the formation of advanced branching, curved, and overhanging buildings with out further assist supplies.
“Once I first began my lab, I might by no means have imagined that we might be 3D printing ice, and utilizing it to create tissues to assist individuals,” mentioned LeDuc.
“However our analysis has developed. It has introduced individuals like Burak and myself collectively, and everybody brings all types of various views and capabilities to the desk. It’s an exquisite factor to do that work collectively the place the sum of the elements is certainly higher than the person elements on this transdisciplinary science and engineering.”
The continuing work goals to scale up 3D-ICE and discover its utility in customized tissue engineering, doubtlessly enabling the creation of tissues that replicate a affected person’s distinctive vascular construction. This might improve the event of purposeful tissue constructs for medical analysis and therapeutics.
Supply: eurekalert.org
