Here at 3D Rapid Print, one of the fastest growing 3D Printing companies in the Thames Valley, we like to keep abreast of the latest innovations in 3D printing.
On December 16th 2022, the University of Oldenburg in Germany spoke of research chemist Dr. Dmitry Momotenko and his colleagues experimenting with nanoscale metal 3D printing. The group’s laboratory has 3 3D printers all built and programmed by the team, where everything in these printers is unusually small. A coloured saline solution flows into a thin capillary tube, which contains a hair-thin piece of wire that acts an anode. This closes the circuit with a gold-plated silicon flake that is smaller than a fingernail and acts as a cathode, which is also the surface that is printed onto. The printer’s nozzle is moved fractions of a millimetre at a time by micromotors and special crystals that change shape when a voltage is applied across them.
To stop unwanted vibrations disrupting the printing process, 2 of the lab’s 3D printers are housed in boxes covered in acoustic foam and rest on 150kg granite plates. In addition, the lab’s lamps are battery-powered to avoid the electromagnetic fields produced by the mains’ alternating current interfering with the currents and voltages needed to control the printing process.
Momotenko expects his team’s 3D printing technique to lead to the creation of batteries that can be charged 1,000 times faster than current models. The university contended that doing this would entail the battery’s electrodes having to change from being flat to having a 3D surface structure. Momotenko argued that the solution to this would be to interlock the anodes and cathodes at the nanoscale, reducing the distance between them to a few nanometres, which he has taken on the challenge of.
In addition to battery technology, Momotenko anticipates many applications for nanoscale metal 3D printing, including microelectronics, nanorobotics and sensor technology. In particular, he hopes to use his team’s technique to manufacture sensors that can detect individual molecules, for example in detecting tumour markers or biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease at extremely low concentrations. Momotenko’s team’s ultimate goal is taking 3D printing to its technological limits and assembling objects atom by atom.
3D printing is an amazing tool. It can grow your small business or start a mini revolution in an industry. Explore what it can do for you when you contact us today.
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