2024-03-16 19:48:23
Researchers from the DeSimone Lab at Stanford University (USA) have developed a technique based on CLIP 3D printing that allows them to 3D print up to 1 million detailed and personalized microscopic particles per day. This can be done with various materials. Applications include drug and vaccine delivery, microelectronics, microfluidics, and complex manufacturing tools.
The new technology is based on continuous liquid interface production, or CLIP. This 3D printing technology was developed by Joseph DeSimone in 2015 and is commercially marketed by Carbon3D. CLIP uses UV light, projected into slices, to quickly cure resin into the desired shape. The technique is based on an oxygen-permeable window above the UV light projector. This creates a “dead zone” that prevents liquid resin from hardening and sticking to the window. This allows delicate elements to be cured without tearing each layer of the window, leading to faster particle printing.
Parts smaller than the width of a human hair
Up to 1 million parts per day
“Using light to create objects without molds opens up a whole new horizon in the particle world,” said Joseph DeSimone, professor of Translational Medicine at Stanford Medicine. The process the researchers invented for mass-producing uniquely shaped particles smaller than the width of a human hair is reminiscent of an assembly line. It starts with a film that is carefully stretched and then sent to the CLIP printer. In the printer, hundreds of shapes are printed onto the film at a time, and then the assembly line continues to wash, harden and remove the shapes – steps that can all be customized based on the shape and material. At the end, the empty film is rolled up once more, giving the entire process the name roll-to-roll CLIP, or r2rCLIP.
Automation
Before r2rCLIP existed, a batch of printed particles had to be processed manually, a slow and labor-intensive process. r2rCLIP’s automation now enables unprecedented production rates of up to 1 million particles per day. The researchers emphasize that this work reflects and strengthens the interdisciplinary nature of their team. “This is an integration of disciplinary diversity of hardware, software, materials science and chemical engineering all coming together,” DeSimone said.
In between resolution and speed
With 3D printing there is a trade-off between resolution and speed. For example, other 3D printing processes can print much smaller – on the nanometer scale – but are slower. Macroscopic 3D printing has already taken hold (literally) in mass production, in the form of shoes, household items, machine parts, football helmets, dentures, hearing aids and much more. The research in the Stanford lab focuses on possibilities in between those worlds. “We are navigating a fine balance between speed and resolution,” said Jason Kronenfeld, a PhD candidate at Stanford and lead author of the paper describing this process, published in Nature.
High resolution and high print speed
What sets the r2rCLIP technology apart, he says, is producing high-resolution outputs while maintaining the manufacturing pace needed to meet the production volumes of particles that experts consider essential for various applications. “We can now create much more complex shapes down to the microscopic scale, at speeds never before seen in particle creation, and from a wide range of materials,” says Jason Kronenfeld.
We are entering a world that is more focused on 3D products than on the process
From questions to ambitions
The researchers hope that the r2rCLIP process will be widely adopted by other researchers and industry. In addition, believes Joseph DeSimone that 3D printing as a field is rapidly evolving from questions regarding the process to ambitions regarding the possibilities. “r2rCLIP is a fundamental technology,” he says. “I believe we are now entering a world that is more focused on 3D products themselves than on the process. These processes clearly become valuable and useful. And now the question is: what are the high-end applications? The researchers themselves have already experimented with the production of both hard and soft particles, made from ceramics and hydrogels. The former might find applications in the production of microelectronics and the latter in the delivery of drugs into the body.
Photo DeSimone Research Group, SEM courtesy of Stanford Nano Shared Facilities)
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