What does a 3d printer print with

• Plastic is still the most popular material used for 3D printing.
• As the 3D-printing market value increases, the list of what materials can be used also grows.
• Raw materials such as metal, graphite, and carbon fiber are commonly used for 3D printing, though at-home use is mostly limited to PLA for now.

Ice cream. Molecules for medicine. Even human skin. The list of what materials are used in 3D printing grows longer—and much more interesting—by the day. And expanding it is a multibillion-dollar material arms race right now.

A recently released 3D-printing market study found that the worldwide market for 3D-printing products was valued at $12.6 billion in 2020 and was expected to grow to $37.2 billion by 2036. That means a huge increase in the materials those machines use.

What Is The Most Common Material Used for 3D Printing?

Plastic still reigns supreme in the 3D printing. According to a Grand View Research report, the market size for 3D printing plastics globally was valued at $638.7 million in 2020 and was expected to grow to $2.83 billion by 2027.

This material isn’t just your “everyday” plastic. Two types of plastic are most commonly used in 3D printing:

• PLA: Poly Lactic Acid (PLA) is the most popular 3D-printing material. It’s a biodegradable plastic made from renewables such as cornstarch. Its low melting point makes it easy to use at home.
• ABS: Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) is best suited for parts that require strength and flexibility, like car components or household appliances. It’s also known for its low cost.

But it doesn’t stop there in the 3D-printing materials world.

1. Metal

Used for: Ready-to-install parts, finished products, prototypes

If there is a runner-up to plastic, it would be metal. Direct metal laser sintering (DMLS) is the technique and, unlike printing plastics, it can be used to make either a finished industrial product or a prototype. The aviation industry is already an early proponent and consumer of DMLS printing to streamline operations and manufacture ready-to-install parts. There are even already mass-market DMLS printers for creating 3D-printed jewelry.

The growth and popularity of 3D printing metals holds the potential to manufacture and create more effective machine parts that currently cannot be mass-produced onsite. This could lead to better conductors, tensile strength, and other attributes of laboratory metals than “mined-and-refined” metals such as steel and copper.

In the aerospace industry, the materials question is largely answered, and creating volume of parts is the Holy Grail. GE Aviation began printing fuel nozzles for its LEAP jet engine in 2016, ramping up to 30,000 parts in less than three years and printing its 100,000th nozzle in 2021. The LEAP’s successor, the RISE, will also incorporate 3D-printed parts.

Used for: Electronics, lighting

Australian-listed graphite and nickel miner Kibaran Resources has partnered with 3D-printing company 3D Group to share development costs on a research-and-development venture called 3D Graphtech Industries.

The partnership is pursuing patents to investigate 3D printing graphite and graphene, a pure form of carbon first created in a laboratory in 2004. Graphene conducts electricity better and is stronger, easier to insulate, and lighter than other conductors on the market today. It outperforms even the best conductors several times over. Because it must be created in a lab, it is a good case study for just what kind of mass production of metals additive manufacturing can accomplish.

Materials for research and development are sourced from Kibaran’s Tanzanian mines, where graphite with high crystallinity and a purity of 99.9% carbon has been found. This is incredibly well-suited to the production of graphene.

The semiconductor industry is interested in producing large quantities of graphene, as well. For example, IBM found a way to use it for LED lighting in 2014. The ability to 3D print sheets of material for use in LEDs could seriously cut lighting production costs.

3. Carbon Fiber

Used for: Bearings, parts, electrical cable installation

Related to graphite, carbon fiber (which undergoes an oxidation process that stretches the polymer) can be added to the more traditional plastic to create a composite that can be as strong as steel but less intensive to use than aluminum, says Markforged. The company’s large-format 3D printers are designed to print stronger parts more quickly and at significantly lower costs.

Meanwhile, startup Impossible Objects has also been exploring carbon fiber, as well as glass, Kevlar, and fiberglass. The company’s printer can also work with PEEK (polyether ether ketone) thermoplastic polymers, which are typically used for bearings, piston parts, and electrical cable installation.

New 3D Printing Materials

The 3D-printing industry is experimenting with a wide variety of innovative, novel approaches such a bio-based resins made from corn and soybean oil, powders, nitinol, and even paper.

As the list of materials grows, what does this mean for the actual hardware? Right now, on the consumer level, plastic is about as good as it gets. For example, the $1,399 Dremel 3D40 Flex is limited to PLA.

Today, several printers are focused entirely on DMLS, including the 3DSystems DMP Flex 350 and several models from Stratasys, but these currently cost upward of $100,000 each because DMLS printers burn much hotter than their plastic counterparts, as the powders and metals they create have higher melting points. Stronger housings and more powerful industrial smelting tools increase their costs significantly.

Although many 3D-printer manufacturers are offering metal 3D-printing services, it will be some time before the economies of scale that helped bring down the cost of plastic 3D printing affect the DMLS market. And 3D-printing systems with graphite/carbon fiber are just now starting to gain traction in the marketplace.

The diversity of applications that industries are exploring for 3D printing makes for an exciting but tumultuous time. From jet parts to lighting to rapid prototyping, the new (and “old”) 3D printing materials will deliver even more opportunities for how and what industries print.

This article has been updated. It was originally published in November 2014.

About the Author

Jeff Yoders has covered IT, CAD, and BIM for Building Design + Construction, Structural Engineer, and CE News magazines. He has won six American Society of Business Publications Editors awards and was part of the reporting team for the 2012 Jesse H. Neal Award for best subject-related series of stories.

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What material does the 3D printer print with? Plastic for 3d printer.

Layer-by-layer printing of three-dimensional models is made from a variety of materials, be it plastic, concrete or metal, and even hydrogel, chocolate and living cells.

For 3D printing, the use of ABS plastic is most optimal. Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (official name ABC plastic ) is valued for the absence of foreign smell, toxicity, in addition, it is impact resistant, flexible and elastic. The material begins to melt from 240 to 248 degrees Celsius. Plastic goes on sale in a powdered state, or in the form of bobbins with plastic threads wound around them. Despite the fact that plastic does not tolerate direct sunlight, models made from it are famous for their durability. Plastic for a 3D printer can be bought in our online store.

Unlike ABC plastic, which models are opaque, acrylic is used to create transparent objects. But acrylic is more capricious in the process of use: the melting point of acrylic is reached later, which means that it will take more time and energy to heat up, and at the same time it quickly cools and hardens. The very process of manufacturing the product is laborious, since heated acrylic contains a lot of air bubbles that can distort the finished product.

Concrete applied for 3D printing , improved, and has a formula that differs from the formula of conventional cement by 5%. The “printing” of a residential building with an area of ​​230 m2 on a 3D printer will take no more than 20 hours, during which it carefully “lays out” building blocks and structures from concrete.

The use of hydrogel for 3D printing was successfully tested by scientists from the University of Illinois, who used a 3D printer to print miniature (5-10 mm) biorobots. Living cells isolated from the tissue of the heart muscle were placed on them, which, spreading through the hydrogel, set the biorobot in motion. The speed of such a biorobot is 236 µm/s. As planned by scientists, in the future, with the help of such biorobots, tumors and toxins in the body will be detected and neutralized, and they will also be used to deliver medications to diseased human organs.

There are 3D printers that use ordinary office paper as a material. Pre-cut layers of paper are applied one on top of the other and attached with glue. Paper models are cheap enough that they are accessible to users, but at the same time, paper models are not durable and not aesthetically pleasing. Models created in this way are ideal for prototyping in computer projects.

Gypsum used for 3D printing is a fragile, short-lived material, but at the same time it has a low cost. Therefore, models made of plaster are mainly suitable for presentations, perfectly conveying the shape, structure and size of the original product. The resistance of gypsum to heat treatment makes it possible to use it in the foundry as samples for casting.

Fans of natural wood and products made from it will also enjoy 3D printing, as there is a specially designed “wood” fiber that contains wood and a polymer, and its properties are similar to polyactide (PLA). Outwardly looking like natural wooden models with the smell of fresh wood, they are quite strong and durable. Currently, the material can only be used in the RepRap self-replicating printers.

3D printing with ice is perhaps the most exotic way of making small figures today. The temperature at which the figures are printed is quite low and is -22 degrees Celsius, and the printing material is water and methyl alcohol heated to 20 degrees Celsius.

The pleasant soft sheen and high strength of the metal are far ahead in quality of any plastic used in 3D printing, therefore light and precious metal powders are successfully used in this area. Copper, aluminum and its alloys, gold and silver in powder form are used for printing, adding fiberglass and ceramic inclusions to them.

Nylon printed parts are similar in many ways to ABS plastic parts, but are softer and more practical. Nylon manufacturing technology is more capricious, in particular, it has a longer curing period, the printing temperature reaches 320 degrees Celsius, and it is more toxic.

The 3D printers of the near future will print shaped chocolate molds, which should be in great demand in restaurants and pastry shops.

It is also impossible not to mention polycaprolactone, the most popular consumable for 3D printing. This material is so valued for its excellent physical properties and the possibility of being used in various printing technologies.

Of the plastic materials for printing, it is also worth highlighting polycarbonate (hard plastic), polylactide material obtained from biomass, sugar beet or corn silage, polypropylene, polyphenylsulfone, which came from the aviation industry, and an unsurpassed leader in the field of 3D printing, used in any of its areas - polyethylene low pressure.

Among other things, there are also printers that carry out 3D printing with mixtures of clay, lime powder, food, cells from living organic matter. And what exotic materials will be printed 3D printers in the future, one can only guess.

How a 3D printer works and what it's for - Code magazine

Over the past couple of years, there has been a lot of news about someone printing something on a 3D printer:

• hearing aid,
• milk products,
• residential building,
• robotic fingers,
• brain implants,
• 1 mm tall statue of David,
• prefabricated electronic devices.

Let's see how this technology works, what its limitations are, and whether it has a future.

Why you need a 3D printer

3D printers print three-dimensional things from plastic or other materials. They can be used at home or in production. For example, here is what you can 3D print:

How it works

Usually a 3D printer uses special plastic to print. It comes in the form of powder, liquid resin or plastic wire in coils. It is from this material that the printed part will consist.

Further, roughly speaking, the process looks like this:

• this plastic is either applied using a moving nozzle;
• or "baked" with a laser;
• or the excess is cut out of the mass of the finished material using a movable cutter (but this is more like turning and is often not classified as 3D printing).

Material takes the shape you want, layer by layer. When all layers are passed, the detail turns out.

Fast 3D Printing with Moving Nozzle:

Due to the fact that the printer needs to constantly heat the plastic, 3D printers do not print very quickly: a part the size of a phone can take 15-20 minutes. The speed also depends on the thickness of the layer: the thicker the layer, the faster the print. But with a large layer thickness, the part may turn out to be sloppy: layers will be visible:

Printing technologies

3D printing is very much needed in industry and industrial design, so there is a whole zoo of printing technologies, each with its own advantages and disadvantages.

Stereolithography . Instead of plastic, a special resin is used here, which hardens in the light. The detail is also formed in layers, but the layers themselves are almost invisible - the resin fills the relief and the detail seems to be a single whole even from a very close distance.

Polymer synthesis (SLS) . This type of printing uses powder, which is then baked with a laser beam. Since the laser beam can be focused anywhere with the desired accuracy, very complex models with high detail can be obtained in this way of printing:

Polyjet. The peculiarity of this technology is that it can print objects simultaneously from different materials. This allows you to create almost any thing of the most complex shape, which immediately have the desired properties. You can even print sneakers that you can wear on such a printer:

What can be printed

Anything can be printed on a 3D printer if you have the right material for printing, a finished model and a large enough printer.

Prototypes. Often, before starting production, a company needs to understand how comfortable a thing will turn out to be in use. In order not to launch a line for the sake of one product, it is printed on a 3D printer and they look at what needs to be changed or finalized. On such prototypes, you can notice, for example, that the buttons turned out to be too small and it would be inconvenient to press them, or that the buttons turned out to be very far from the fingers and you will need to reach them specially.

Parts and parts. Sometimes it is difficult or almost impossible to find a spare part for a tool: the manufacturer does not produce them or the model has been discontinued for a long time. In this case, you can find a three-dimensional model of the desired part on the Internet or draw it yourself in the editor, so that you can then send it to print.

Medicine. 3D printing is actively used in medicine to create new joints, tissues and treat patients. The difference from traditional printing is that instead of plastic, they print with special “living” solutions that interact with each other and behave like real organs and tissues. Thanks to this technology, it is now easy to print a joint that a surgeon can put on a person instead of a damaged one.

Hobbies and modeling. It is easy to print various miniatures, collectible figurines and models with a 3D printer.

Manufacture of other robots. 3D printers do not yet know how to produce servos and microprocessors, but they already know how to print bodies and frames of robots.

Houses and buildings. We take hefty rails with motors and controllers. We install a movable nozzle, on which you can supply a building mixture (concrete or polymers). You can print the walls of buildings. Unlike traditional brick, panel and block construction technologies, the shape of the walls and the building as a whole can be any. The foundation, floors and roof are not yet printed, but this is for now.

Imagine: we send fifty 3D printers on a mobile basis to Mars. For a year, each of them prints another 100 printers. Then all these 5,000 printers disperse around Mars and begin to build the first colony. While they are building, we order furniture from Ikea, arrange delivery, and just in time for delivery, our robots will finish printing everything. Apple trees on Mars are unlikely to bloom, but five-story buildings can.

Criticisms and issues

❌ Slow and no guarantees: printing is quite slow, not accurate enough. A huge problem in amateur printers is marriage. For example, a part can peel off the substrate right during printing, and hell will happen. Or the motors will decalibrate, and the nozzle will begin to miss the right places.

❌ Low efficiency: To print a 10 x 10 cm part, you need a printer that is at least 50 x 50 cm, which will cost several hundred dollars.

❌ Not the strongest materials: 3D printing has so far been limited to plastics and resins. There are separate printing technologies based on metal powder, but if you need a steel part, you don’t need a 3D printer, but a normal turner and machine tool.

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