3D printing of bacteria into functional complex materials

A team from the ETH in Zurich and the University College in Dublin has been able to demonstrate a 3D printing approach to create bacteria-derived functional materials by combining the natural diverse metabolism of bacteria with the shape design freedom of additive manufacturing.

They have developed a biocompatible hydrogel with optimized rheological properties that allows for the immobilization of bacteria into 3D-printed architectures at a high accuracy. They have demonstrated two applications: degrading environmental toxins, and making cellulose, which can be used as scaffolds for skin replacements and coatings for biomedical devices that help protect patients against organ rejection.

Immobilization of Pseudomonas putida, a known phenol degrader, when printed allows to degrade phenol into biomass, showing the potential of the 3D bacteria printing platform for biotechnological applications. Immobilization of Acetobacter xylinum in a predesigned 3D matrix enables the in situ formation of bacterial cellulose scaffolds on nonplanar surfaces, relevant for personalized biomedical applications.

Science Advances 01 Dec 2017: Vol. 3, no. 12, eaao6804 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aao6804

LEGO-inspired microfluidic blocks from 3D printer

Pictured is a microfluidic system assembled from modular components that were fabricated using 3D printing at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. Krisna C. Bhargava et al. used stereolithographic printing techniques to manufacture standardized, interchangeable, fluidic blocks of about 1 cm³ and assembled them by hand to produce variations of complex 3D circuits. Circuit behavior was predicted using design rules analogous to those used in electronic circuit design, and alleviated design limitations imposed by 2D circuit designs.

Microfluidic systems promise to improve the analysis and synthesis of materials, biological or otherwise, by lowering the required volume of fluid samples, offering a tightly controlled fluid-handling environment, and simultaneously integrating various chemical processes (applications include DNA analysis, pathogen detection, clinical diagnostic testing and synthetic chemistry). To build these systems, designers depend on microfabrication techniques that restrict them to arranging their designs in two dimensions and completely fabricating their design in a single step. This study introduces modular, reconfigurable components containing fluidic and sensor elements adaptable to many different microfluidic circuits. These elements can be assembled to allow for 3D routing of channels. This assembly approach allows for the application of network analysis techniques like those used in classical electronic circuit design, facilitating the straightforward design of predictable flow systems.

The authors devised computer models for eight modular fluidic and instrumentation components (MFICs), each of which would perform a simple task. They said that their work in developing these MFICs marks the first time that a microfluidic device has been broken down into individual components that can be assembled, disassembled and re-assembled repeatedly. They attribute their success to recent breakthroughs in high-resolution, micron-scale 3D printing technology.

Krisna C. Bhargava, Bryant Thompson, and Noah Malmstadt, Discrete elements for 3D microfluidics, PNAS 2014 111 (42) 15013-1501, doi:10.1073/pnas.1414764111

3D print of van Gogh's ear

The German artist Diemut Strebe used a 3D printer at a Boston hospital to create a replica of Vincent van Gogh's ear. Strebe said the copy of the ear uses DNA material from Lieuwe van Gogh, the great-great-grandson of Theo Van Gogh, Vincent's brother.

The artifact is on display at the Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe, Germany through July 6.

Source: Los Angeles Times

3D print selfie

Sony Music Communications Inc. started selling the 3-D Print Figure product last year in which a figure is sculpted using full-color 3-D scanners. To create the figure, the scanner first obtains data through the scanning of a person from head to toe.

Then a computer models the data and outputs images through a 3-D printer using color ink, special bonding materials and white plaster powder. The price for a figure ranges from ¥49,000 to ¥120,000 ($600–$1500), depending on the size. According to Yosuke Takuma, who planned this business for Sony Music Communications, these 3-D figures are popular among people who want to mark such special occasions as weddings and matriculation ceremonies.

Koji Iwabuchi and his wife Yumi visited the studio from Suginami Ward, Tokyo, to order figures to commemorate their 20th wedding anniversary. “It’s like photography at the end of the Edo period as we cannot move at all,” Koji Iwabuchi said. “It’s interesting to feel like Ryoma Sakamoto. In the future, it might become an ordinary thing, but it’s fun that few people have experienced this,” he said. Ryoma Sakamoto (1836-1867) is known as the subject of some famous photos from that time.

Article with pictures

Amorphous iridescence from 3D printer

The research group of Prof. Frank Scheffold at the University of Fribourg has succeed in creating iridescent plastic cylinders with a 3D printer.

Microscopic or nanoscopic structures can make an object appear to have color, without use of pigment. Examples in nature include butterfly wings and bird feathers, but these are ordered, crystalline structures. Using a high definition 3D printer, a research group at the University of Fribourg has produced a new amorphous (non-crystalline) material with interesting capabilities in this field. The material is an irregular network of microscopic plastic cylinders. It selectively reflects light in the infrared range, and also dramatically reduces transparency. The new class of material has a wide range of potential applications, from packaging, automobile paint, and cosmetics to the processing and transmission of optical signals.

Press release

Tokyo Police to Introduce 3D Printers for Prosecutors in Court

The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department aims to introduce 3D printers for prosecutors to create more graphic crime scenes in court. The agency will use US-made machines capable of making solid color objects made of plaster using 3D image data captured with portable special cameras. The models will recreate murder scenes, or fire scenes details such as wall colors, shape and furniture layout. The department hopes that such models will assist judges to visualize circumstances such as culprit entry and escape routes as well as crowd member positions at the crime scenes. In current criminal proceedings, prosecutors generally describe crimes using pictures, photos and floor plans; although some of them have had 3D models made manually and used them at trial. The department has already started making prototypes based on the data from several cases. The Metropolitan Police's Criminal Investigation Laboratory introduced 3D printers in 2011 and has since applied them to actual investigations.

Source: Nikkei

3-D printers now mainstream

One way to tell a technology has crossed the chasm from the visionary early adopters to the pragmatic early majority is when it is written up in your local newspaper. Although 3-D printers have been around for many years, they have been an expensive and fragile tool for techies.

In today's New York Times, Amy O'Leary has written an article describing several examples of things people can do for their everyday life, complete with model recommendations and prices, as well as a link to Amazon's new on-line store for digital printing.

3-D Printers to Make Things You Need or Like