HEИндивидуална стипендия2024–2026

FloR3D · Flow-Reactor Coupled 3D Printing: Achieving Voxel-Level Control of Out-of-Equilibrium Materials

„Хоризонт Европа“ — Действия „Мария Склодовска-Кюри“

Период: 2024-02-01 → 2026-01-31
Финансиране от ЕС: 183 174 €
Участници: 2
Схема: HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-GF

Линиите свързват координатора с партньорите.

Накратко на български

Нов метод за 3D принтиране позволява създаването на материали с прецизна микроструктура, подобно на начина, по който природата подрежда целулозата в растенията. Това помага за разработването на обекти с точно определени механични и оптични свойства в всяка точка.

Този кратък обзор е генериран от изкуствен интелект

Кратко обяснение, генерирано от езиков модел по текста на CORDIS. Оригиналът е по-долу.

Резултати накратко

Flow-Reactor Coupled 3D Printing: Achieving Voxel-Level Control of Out-of-Equilibrium Materials

Nature is able to synthesize materials with spatially patterned optical, mechanical, and chemical properties by designing the local nano or microscale structure of the materials. For example, using a single chemical building block, such as cellulose in plants and keratin in bird feathers, natural materials tightly control and vary the arrangement of these building blocks to obtain tailor-made properties locally. This approach yields multifunctional materials that are highly optimized for their application: the helicoidal nanoscale arrangement of cellulose in the cell wall of the Pollia Condensata fruit provide enhanced mechanical strength while causing an iridescent blue coloration. While such locally variable nanostructure is difficult and cumbersome to achieve through traditional manufacturing methods, additive manufacturing, or 3D printing, offers a method to bypass this limitation. By careful design of the print path, the property of the material can be controlled down to a ‘voxel’ (3D pixel) level. However, current 3D printing approaches that capable of generating nanostructured materials are primarily limited by the ‘thermodynamic’ assembly of the ink. This means that the resultant nanostructure is an inherent product of the ink’s chemical structure, and varying the nanostructure requires using a different feedstock. As such, on-the-fly variations of the microstructure are very difficult to achieve. In FloR3D, we aim to develop an approach to design materials with locally controlled microstructures with a 3D printing system. In our custom-built FloR3D setup, the to-be-printed materials are synthesized in situ from a mixture of two starting materials. The product of this reaction can then be extruded using a ‘direct-ink writing’ system to create spatially patterned nanostructures with arbitrary geometry. Importantly, the material’s properties can be designed by varying the ratio of the starting materials during the printing process, leading to materials with spatially-varied optical properties.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз

Цел на проекта

Nature has optimized the properties of its building blocks by spatially varying hierarchical microstructures within complex form factors. Additive manufacturing techniques, in particular direct ink writing (DIW), are promising pathways towards replicating these systems synthetically, leading to printed materials with tarilored materials properties. However, current DIW techniques do not offer access to out-of-equilibrium materials, greatly limiting printable microstructures. To overcome this limitation, a new DIW technique, termed FloR3D, will be developed in this project. By integrating an evolving chemical reaction into the printing process itself, this Flow-Reactor coupled 3D printing technique allows for out-of-equilibrium microstructures to be generated within the nozzle, which is subsequently trapped upon deposition. Through on-the-fly variations of the relative flow rates into the flow reactor, FloR3D will allow for voxel-level control of the material composition and microstructure, resulting in optimized and spatially-varied hierarchical structures. By incorporating a polymerization-induced microphase separation (PIMS) process, spinodally-decomposed bicontinuous microstructures, which was previously unachievable by DIW, will be printed. Printing these bicontinuous systems, commonly used in nature to exhibit structural coloration, will result in angular-independent structural colored materials with arbitrary form factor. Furthermore, by including photoresponsive monomers within the PIMS system and an in-situ UV source, the materials' refractive indices can be tuned independently of the microstructural feature size, resulting in materials with gradient and spatially-patterned optical properties. Ultimately, beyond the complex photonic materials produced in this proposal, the design of FloR3D can be broadened to incorporate a variety of other chemical reactions, leading to a new pathway towards free-form high-performance materials.

Оригинален текст от CORDIS (на английски).

Участници

RIJKSUNIVERSITEIT GRONINGEN · GroningenКоординаторНидерландия
TRUSTEES OF PRINCETON UNIVERSITY · Princeton, NjСъединени щати