3D printing is stuck with a limited palette of usable materials, and a team at Nottingham is building a high-speed screening platform to rapidly expand that palette. The core problem is that 3D printing works brilliantly as a prototyping tool but fails as a mass-production method because the range of printable materials is too narrow. Developing new formulations one-by-one is too slow. The researchers will adapt a high-throughput discovery method—previously used to find bacteria-resistant biomaterials—to instead screen thousands of potential 3D printing formulations in parallel. This automated approach will identify promising material combinations for inkjet, extrusion, and hot-melt extrusion printing across multiple industrial sectors. If successful, the project will create a public library of proven, ready-to-use formulations that UK manufacturers can select from like picking from a catalogue. This would remove a major bottleneck for the 3D printing industry, allowing companies to skip the costly trial-and-error phase of materials development. The methodology itself is also reusable, meaning other sectors seeking new printable materials can adopt the same platform. The result could accelerate the shift of 3D printing from a niche prototyping tool into a mainstream manufacturing process for everything from medical devices to aerospace components.
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3D printing lacks the materials required to fully become an established mass manufacturing process. Progress in materials development continues but a step change is required, and this will be realised through high throughput methods. High throughput discovery is an established methodology for automated identification of promising materials. At Nottingham it has been developed as tool for understanding biomaterials, and recently was instrumental in finding materials whose surface would resist bacterial attachment, potentially avoiding unnecessary use of antibiotics. Here, drawing together a multi-disciplinary, cross-community team, we will adapt this philosophy to rapidly identify formulations that can be used for 3D printing in a range of sectors represented by our industry partners. This will enable the creation of a library of materials, material combinations and formulations that are proven for 3D printing (particularly ink jet, extrusion, hot melt extrusion). Whilst the formation of this methodology is an initially challenging and time consuming step, the establishment of this set of libraries will enable rapid adoption downstream whilst the methodology itself can be utilised by other sectors seeking materials. Our libraries will be readily extended to create a tool for UK industry for selection of 3D printing formulations.
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