Empa Researchers develop 3D printing ink from Cellulose

The Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa) have created a new ecological ink that is made from one of the main building blocks of plant material, cellulose. Thanks to their research, their ink may be the development needed to bring more environmentally friendly inks into fruition.

Working alongside researchers Dr. Gilberto Siqueira and Dr. Tanja Zimmermann from the Laboratory for Applied Wood Materials, as well as researchers from Harvard University and ETH Zurich, they were able to bring a new technology that has the power to bring 3D printing down an even more sustainable path.

The cellulose nanocrystals under a microscope

The ink is made up of nanocrystals, that are created using cellulose- a glucose packed structure that is found in wood. As cellulose doesn’t naturally take the form of a crystal, the researchers found parts of the structure where the cellulose fibrils, the small, slender fibers, had a more ordered structure. Once found, researchers applied an acid treatment that left them with the nanocrystals, tiny rod-shaped structures that were 120 nanometers long and 6.5 nanometers in diameter.