3D Printing

3D Printing Glass Three-dimensional printing of multicomponent glasses using phase-separating resins (3dmake.de)

3D Printing Glass

Additive manufacturing is the base of 3D printing, it has several methods but the most used and common are SLA (Stereolithography) or SLS (selective laser sintering) and FDM (fused deposition modeling). Both generally use polymers as the main material to produce prints and here is where things can get complicated, in this article we will cover the use of glass and its raw materials used to produce 3D prints.octype html>


Back in 2015, MIT researchers developed a 3D printer that melts glass to later extrude it to a desired form (mit.edu)


3D printing glass is not an easy task, there have been a few organizations and scientists that were able to produce a 3D printed glass piece. Most of these methods rely on high temperature to help reach the glass melting point to later mold it into the desired form, glass will require temperatures around a 1000 ºC to reach its fusion point.


MIT 3D printed glass pieces are beautiful and of complex shapes. (mit.edu)


A team of engineers from the University of Washington succeeded by using glass powder and a binder solution to make particles react and thus being able to lay them and form a desired glass object. The technique allows a new type of material (glass) to be used in a typical powder based 3D printing system.


This 3D printing method was named Vitraglyphic process and was created in 2009 (washington.edu)


In 2017, a German group of researchers from KIT (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology) used an SLA process to create intricate glass objects. In SLA printing, light is used to selectively harden liquid materials into solid parts, layer by layer. The team applied the SLA process to a special ink containing glass nanopowder suspended in a photocurable polymer, and then they fired the piece at 1,300 ºC to burn off the polymer and densify the glass.




Complicated high-precision structures made of glass can be manufactured with this method (kit.edu)


Most recently (November 2019), ETH Zürich have used a similar method as the KIT researchers, they have developed a special resin that contains a plastic and organic molecules to which glass precursors are bonded, the resin can be cured by UV Light using commercially available DLP 3D printers.


Complex objects can be made from different types of glass, or even combined in the same object using the technique (ethz.ch)


After the resin is cured into the desired form, the piece is subjected to two different temperatures: at 600˚C to burn off the polymer framework and then at around 1000˚C to densify the ceramic structure into glass. During the firing process, the objects shrink significantly, but become transparent and hard like window glass.

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