Berkeley Lab uses 3D Printing to print liquid structures

A team of scientific researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory claims to have developed a 3D printing method that can make fully liquid structures. This technique would use a very specific 3D printer that would deposit “water nets” in a liquid base made of silicone oil and which could be used for chemical synthesis and to manufacture liquid electronics.

3D printing is a manufacturing method that successively deposits layers of materials to form the desired structure, a material that is most often known in solid form. Only, Lawrence Berkeley’s researchers seem to have gone further in the development of their additive manufacturing technique which now extended to make liquid structures using a liquid material.

Berkeley Lab scientists explain that by printing thin streams of water in a substance made of silicone oil, they could create liquid tubes inside another liquid. At this stage of the research, the researchers have 3D printed nets of water between 10 microns and 1 mm in diameter and have created different types of structures including spiral and branch complex models up to a few meters high. They can even change shape and adapt to their environment. Researchers believe that this 3D liquid printing technique could have utility in the manufacture of liquid electronics but also for chemical synthesis. For this one, Tom Russell, a Berkeley Lab scientist, says, ” This is a class of materials that can be reconfigured and can be adapted as needed in liquid reaction vessels, whether for chemical syntheses or ionic transport by the way, by catalysis.