Sustainable 3D printing by reversible salting-out effects with aqueous salt solutions

Donghwan Ji, Joseph Liu, Jiayu Zhao, Minghao Li, Yumi Rho, Hwansoo Shin, Tae Hee Han and Jinhye Bae ()
Additional contact information
Donghwan Ji: University of California San Diego
Joseph Liu: University of California San Diego
Jiayu Zhao: University of California San Diego
Minghao Li: University of California San Diego
Yumi Rho: University of California San Diego
Hwansoo Shin: Hanyang University
Tae Hee Han: Hanyang University
Jinhye Bae: University of California San Diego

Nature Communications, 2024, vol. 15, issue 1, 1-12

Abstract: Abstract Achieving a simple yet sustainable printing technique with minimal instruments and energy remains challenging. Here, a facile and sustainable 3D printing technique is developed by utilizing a reversible salting-out effect. The salting-out effect induced by aqueous salt solutions lowers the phase transition temperature of poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM) solutions to below 10 °C. It enables the spontaneous and instant formation of physical crosslinks within PNIPAM chains at room temperature, thus allowing the PNIPAM solution to solidify upon contact with a salt solution. The PNIPAM solutions are extrudable through needles and can immediately solidify by salt ions, preserving printed structures, without rheological modifiers, chemical crosslinkers, and additional post-processing steps/equipment. The reversible physical crosslinking and de-crosslinking of the polymer through the salting-out effect demonstrate the recyclability of the polymeric ink. This printing approach extends to various PNIPAM-based composite solutions incorporating functional materials or other polymers, which offers great potential for developing water-soluble disposable electronic circuits, carriers for delivering small materials, and smart actuators.

Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-48121-7 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:15:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-024-48121-7

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-48121-7

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().