Massachusetts Institute of Technology LED lamp to change the chemical structure of 3D printing objects

Recently, Massachusetts Institute of Technology chemists have developed a new 3D printing technology that allows to change the chemical structure of the printed object and the chemical connection of multiple 3D printing objects. It is reported that the technology can greatly expand the complexity of the object created using 3D printing.

3D printing is an incredible manufacturing technology that can create many things from a variety of materials. However, there are limitations of the technology: on the one hand, 3D print objects in general is not changing. They can be post processed, polished, or even processed into smaller shapes, but the chemical structure of the 3D polymer object is fixed. But now, a group of chemical experts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has developed a new 3D printing technology is used to change the chemical structure of the object, its chemical composition can be changed after printing, the technology also allows multiple 3D print objects together.

Now, the team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology published their findings in a recent issue of the ACS Journal of central science. Jeremiah Johnson is a professional Firmenich occupation development of chemistry Massachusetts Institute of Technology associate professor, senior author and a research paper, he explained to MIT staff how to use this new technology to increase the complexity of 3D print object. "The idea is that you can print a material and then take this material, use the light to turn the material into something else, or to grow the material further," he said.

Stereolithography technology, 3D Systems pioneered the use of liquid resin 3D printing technology, as well as Formlabs and other companies to promote the liquid resin 3D printing technology is one of the more accurate 3D printing technology ordinary users. A stereo lithography 3D printer is used to irradiate a series of bright projections onto a barrel of liquid resin, which is cured (hardened) in response to light, forming a solid object layer by layer. By using stereo lithography and called "polymerization" combination of technology, Johnson and his team have been able to create 3D printing materials, can make the growth stop, and then start again at a later time point.

As early as 2013, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that by using ultraviolet light, they could break the 3D printing structure of the polymer, creating what is known as a "radical" molecule. Free radicals can then be bound to the surrounding new monomers and incorporated into the original material. Johnson said: "the advantage here is that you can turn on the lights, they grow, you turn off the lights, they stop. In principle, you can repeat indefinitely, they can continue to grow. "

Unfortunately, attempts to control free radicals proved to be very difficult to impose excessive damage on 3D printing materials. But experts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have come up with another method: blue light from LED. For example, a polymer for 3D printing contains a chemical group TTC, which can be activated by a light activated organic catalyst. When exposed to blue light from the LED, these TTC are extended with the attachment of new monomers. Because of the addition of these monomers, they provide new properties for the material. "We can take macro materials and grow in the way we want," Johnson said.

By using LED technology, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that they can change the various properties of 3D print object structure, including their stiffness and hydrophobicity (their rejection or absorption of water level). By adding a certain type of monomer, the chemist can also make the material in response to temperature expansion or contraction. In addition, they can pass in the interconnection area to melt two light illuminates the 3D object. The researchers said, this particular process can be used to create a huge, chemically stable 3D printing structure, and has unprecedented complexity. "

Now, one of the obstacles faced by researchers is to keep the environment of the experiment as oxygen free, because the organic catalyst used in the process can not work in the presence of oxygen. However, this set of tests can catalyze other catalysts similar to polymerization in an aerobic environment.

By merging the field of polymer science and materials science, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology opened several exciting opportunities for advanced 3D printing.

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