New method makes 3D printing 100 times faster

Scientists can now shape 3D figures at speed, using light frequencies to harden a liquid gel.

TECHNOLOGY Chemists from the University of Michigan in the US have invented a new way of creating 3D printed structures, and it is 100 times faster than the ordinary method. Normally, 3D printers work by printing many layers of a material on top of each other, gradually producing a 3D structure. Using the new technology, the structure takes shape in thick gel that hardens when it is subjected to light of specific wavelengths.

In the scientists’ experiments they used a resinlike gel that hardens when blue light of specific wavelengths is applied. The gel cannot harden when it is subjected to ultraviolet light, allowing the scientists to control the places in which the gel hardens and turns into a 3D figure.

Both types of light are aimed at the gel from below and up through the container, which has a bottom made of glass. First, the scientists activate the UV light, selecting a specific intensity which passes up into the gel to some defined distance within which the gel can harden. Subsequently, the blue light is activated, divided into beams of different intensities which can thereby govern the speed at which the gel hardens in different place. As the figure takes shape, the construction platform is raised up through the gel, so the light beams work to add new layers to the 3D structure.

The technology is known as stereolithography, and the US scientists are not the first to work with it, but the groundbreaking factor is the use of the restrictive UV radiation, speeding up the process. The scientists were able to print a 2metre structure in one hour, compared with 23mm per hour from other stereolithography printers.