3D printers have ceased to be something unusual and are now used in a variety of fields, including in the field of medicine. Cases have been known where jaws and even bones have been printed using polymers or certain metals, but the common thread among all of these procedures is the reliance on light or heat to generate power for these printers, at least until now.

A third source has been discovered, which brings us to an article recently published in Nature Communications. Where researchers at Concordia University, Canada have created a new technology that uses sound waves to directly create energy to print 3D objects called Direct sound printing (DSP), literally translated: Direct sound printing.

The researchers explain that using focused ultrasonic waves, it is possible to induce chemical reactions in tiny suspended bubbles, which will cause a sonochemical reaction in a liquid polymer solution.

“We found that if we use a certain type of ultrasound at a certain frequency and power, we can create very localized and very focused chemically reactive areas,” Habibie says. “Essentially, bubbles can be used as reactors to drive chemical reactions to turn liquid resin into solids or semi-solids.” said Mohsen Habibi, a research fellow at the Concordia Optical Biomicrosystems Laboratory and lead author of the paper.

How the polymer reacts to sound

When applying these waves ultrasound inside these bubbles, the fluctuations caused by chemical reactions are so intense that even lasting only picosecondsreach temperatures of 15,000 Kelvin and pressures exceeding 1,000 bar, but do not affect the material around them due to their extremely short time, except for the so-called voxel, the 3D equivalent of a pixel.

To conduct the tests, the researchers used a polymer called polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and transducer, a device that converts energy to create an ultrasonic field.

The whole process on this printer works as follows, once the ultrasonic field is generated:

“It passes through the shell of the building material and solidifies the target liquid resin and deposits it on the platform or other previously solidified object. The transducer moves along a predetermined path, eventually creating the desired product pixel by pixel. The microstructure parameters can be controlled by adjusting the duration of the frequency of the ultrasonic wave and the viscosity of the material used.”

Continuation after commercial

The versatility of a sound printer

The researchers believe that the versatility of using this technology is interesting for an industry that depends on delicate and specific equipment.

Since, being strong, it can pass through structures and cause a reaction only in the target polymer. The researchers also note that if polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), it is regularly used in manufacturer-controlled environments, suggesting that it could be used in medical procedures in the future for possible remote impressions inside the human body.

“We have proven that we can print from a variety of materials, including polymers and ceramics,” says Pakirisami. “We are going to try polymer-metal composites next, and eventually we want to start printing metal using this method.”

There is no doubt that there will be more news to come as 3D printing with sound advances. If you’re still curious, you can read the full article here.

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Via: Science Daily Source: Nature