5 ms·

3D printing with cellulose

127 points by udfalkso 10y ago

fudged71 10y ago
This is fantastic. If the properties and aesthetics are good, I can see a lot of demand driving the filament manufacturers to adopt this material. Paste-like extruders for open-source machines exist on the market today for chocolate and clay. Only concern for me is it sounds like post-processing is required.
- yetihehe 10y ago
  From the article: > As the acetone quickly evaporates, the cellulose acetate solidifies in place. A subsequent optional treatment replaces the acetate groups and increases the strength of the printed parts.
  - digi_owl 10y ago
    Effectively, dipping the thing in lye.
contingencies 10y ago
I've been researching thermoforming polymer materials for the last few weeks, and there is a well established category of materials known as PLA. Polylactides (PLA) or polylactic acids represent a relatively new group of thermoplastics for packaging applications obtained from renewable resources. In extensive tests the functional and thermoforming properties of PLA are compared with those of other polymers. They are a biodegradable/compostable polyester manufactured from plant based resources. At 60°C and relative air humidity of 80% PLA will degrade completely after 60 days. PLA's properties make it suitable for various thermoforming applications, particularly cups for cold bevarages and trays for fruit and vegetables. To produce high-molecular PLA, a process is used that is sustainable, solvent-free, and environmentally friendly. PLA can be obtained from cassava, corn, maize, sugar beet, sugar cane, wheat, or agricultural byproducts containing natural plant sugars. Although PLA has been known for more than a century, it has only been of commercial interest in recent years, in light of its biodegradability. While PLA is one of the most promising bio-basedplastics, its main disadvantages are high price and unsatisfactory mechanical properties. My understanding is that thermoforming is however only really utilized for sheet-based PLA material with essentially non-convex configurations. Also, it tends to degrade over 60 degrees celsius. I wonder how this process and its output differs step-wise, limitation wise, and in terms of resulting material's mechanical properties. From the sounds of it, it's essentially a layering process and too early to judge limitations, though a small temperature range could perhaps be expected.
- Jack000 10y ago
  maybe I'm missing something, but PLA is just 3d printer filament. There's only two plastics commonly used for extruder-style 3d printers, and they're ABS and PLA.
  - obsurveyor 10y ago
    This is a bit out of date. Nylon, PETG, TPE/TPU and polycarbonate are quite common for home 3D printing now as well as a number of hybrid materials.
    - jononor 10y ago
      Polypropylene is coming in too. PVA for water-soluble (mostly as support material).
acd 10y ago
If you scale it up you could 3d print houses from Cellulose. Since 3d printing is inexpensive and the material abundant you can 3d print an outer isolation layer of a honey comb structure, bio inspired from bees. If the outer isolation layer becomes degraded from years of contact with wind and rain you can simply print a new one.
- adrianratnapala 10y ago
  Is 3d printing really the most efficient way to make such a structure? Could you not pack straws together and then squish them? Could you not make a corrugated sheets like cardboard?
  - simonh 10y ago
    Mass 3D printing an item that can already be manufactured through e.g. injection moulding or assembling standardised parts is never going to be efficient at scale. That's not what it's for. Where 3D printing excels is at producing one-offs or short runs, immediate production (no time consuming buildout phase manufacturing moulds and setting up production lines), on-site or mobile manufacturing, or making designs that are not amenable to traditional manufacturing processes such as objects with complex geometries or internal voids.
- Fiahil 10y ago
  Could we build spaceships with that ?
  - gnode 10y ago
    The main factor when designing a spaceship is mass; getting mass into orbit is currently very expensive. You want to use materials which have very high strength to weight ratio, such as aluminium, and carbon fibre.
    - benibela 10y ago
      Can we build a space elevator with this?
agumonkey 10y ago
For the last few months I was wondering if there were a way to implement logic in cellulose ..
- jacquesm 10y ago
  What application do you have in mind? Cellulose absent water is extremely inert, so inert that we use it as long term information storage, it is also an extremely good insulator. You'd be more likely looking at using the cellulose as a non-conducting carrier than as part of the logic itself.
  - Mtinie 10y ago
    Are there an any advantages to using hydrodynamic vs. electrodynamic forces for carrying signals? Hollow cellulose nanotube structures could be printed to carry fluid to different areas of a three dimensional circuit. Would you be able to sacrifice some of the raw "speed" you gain from using electrical current to carry the signals in a traditional PCB if it meant you could work with significantly reduced heat? Or is my rudimentary understanding of the physics here betraying me? Friction is going to exist, so it's quite possible that these types of organic fluid logic gates would be useful for other reasons, but not in the ways I've imagined. Without some(all?) of the electromagnetic changes associated with the continued reduction of die size for traditional electrical circuits, can you build significantly denser (and eventually more powerful) mechanical circuits with fluid-filled cellulose nanotubes?
    - jacquesm 10y ago
      It's prone to rotting in the presence of fluid, if you make it wet I think that would be a quick and messy ending.
      - Mtinie 10y ago
        Good point. Would an oil-based transport fluid mitigate that to some degree, or is the organic nature of cellulose going to be a liability to hurdle to making a durable component regardless of the fluid used?
Tepix 10y ago
This claim is pretty incredible: “After we 3-D print, we restore the hydrogen bonding network through a sodium hydroxide treatment,” Pattinson says. “We find that the strength and toughness of the parts we get … are greater than many commonly used materials” for 3-D printing, including acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) and polylactic acid (PLA).
- robert_foss 10y ago
  Maybe a bit too incredible. How do thick-walled materials have their hydrogen bonds restored? This process seems rather more involved than regular 3D printing.
  - lsaferite 10y ago
    Sounds like they soak the print in a NaOH solution. I imagine if the material is porous enough to evaporate acetone, it's also porous enough to absorb a NaOH solution.
    - digi_owl 10y ago
      Just in case someone else gets bogged down in chemistry, NaOH is better known as lye or caustic soda.
      - lsaferite 10y ago
        They called it Sodium Hydroxide in the article as well. :)
  - Para2016 10y ago
    Maybe it doesn't penetrate through the walls entirely - perhaps just the outsides? Sort of analogous to constructing a wide brick wall with the interior filled with rubble?
  - marcosdumay 10y ago
    The thing in that photo is quite porous. Also paper is very penetrable by water, so it wouldn't be too surprising. But, well, if it's that simple, just soaking cellulose acetate in NaOH should have a huge number of applications. Maybe even more interesting than this 3D printer. (Gotta try this at home later...)
jlebrech 10y ago
so it's practically paper?
- stagbeetle 10y ago
  No, it's similar to hard plastic.
  - jlebrech 10y ago
    I thought it was plant based
    - stagbeetle 10y ago
      Both plastic and petroleum jelly are petroleum-based, but have drastically different properties. The cellulose polymer acts as hard plastic.
    - maxerickson 10y ago
      Cellulose acetate was one of the first materials used for many of the things we use petroleum based plastics for now. Early Lego were cellulose acetate. It's still used for lots of things.
      - logfromblammo 10y ago
        Cellulose is a very useful chemical. It was generally replaced by petrochemical synthetic polymers for many of its original applications because the latter may be more stable at higher temperatures, under UV light, in contact with certain common chemicals (like water), etc. And most of the petro-plastics are cheaper to manufacture. Cellulosic thermoplastics often appear in products where you don't want the plastic component to last forever, particularly textile fibers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellulose_acetate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellulose_acetate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellulose_triacetate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellulose_triacetate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rayon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rayon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellophane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellophane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyocell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyocell This 3D printing application seems similar to processes used to produce rayon and cellophane, but instead of producing the more universally useful fiber and sheet forms as a commodity, it forms an end-product directly and then stabilizes it chemically.
jszymborski 10y ago
Looks like the website is under heavy load. Here's a mirror: https://archive.fo/eoohY https://archive.fo/eoohY
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
slurple 10y ago
Sounds promising for both 3D printing applications and the need for non-petroleum based plastic-like materials.
aruggirello 10y ago
Just a funny coincidence but, did you see "TreeMaker" origami software just below this thread? :-)

127 points by udfalkso 10y ago

This is fantastic. If the properties and aesthetics are good, I can see a lot of demand driving the filament manufacturers to adopt this material. Paste-like extruders for open-source machines exist on the market today for chocolate and clay. Only concern for me is it sounds like post-processing is required.

yetihehe 10y ago
From the article: > As the acetone quickly evaporates, the cellulose acetate solidifies in place. A subsequent optional treatment replaces the acetate groups and increases the strength of the printed parts.
- digi_owl 10y ago
  Effectively, dipping the thing in lye.

contingencies 10y ago

I've been researching thermoforming polymer materials for the last few weeks, and there is a well established category of materials known as PLA. Polylactides (PLA) or polylactic acids represent a relatively new group of thermoplastics for packaging applications obtained from renewable resources. In extensive tests the functional and thermoforming properties of PLA are compared with those of other polymers. They are a biodegradable/compostable polyester manufactured from plant based resources. At 60°C and relative air humidity of 80% PLA will degrade completely after 60 days. PLA's properties make it suitable for various thermoforming applications, particularly cups for cold bevarages and trays for fruit and vegetables. To produce high-molecular PLA, a process is used that is sustainable, solvent-free, and environmentally friendly. PLA can be obtained from cassava, corn, maize, sugar beet, sugar cane, wheat, or agricultural byproducts containing natural plant sugars. Although PLA has been known for more than a century, it has only been of commercial interest in recent years, in light of its biodegradability. While PLA is one of the most promising bio-basedplastics, its main disadvantages are high price and unsatisfactory mechanical properties. My understanding is that thermoforming is however only really utilized for sheet-based PLA material with essentially non-convex configurations. Also, it tends to degrade over 60 degrees celsius. I wonder how this process and its output differs step-wise, limitation wise, and in terms of resulting material's mechanical properties. From the sounds of it, it's essentially a layering process and too early to judge limitations, though a small temperature range could perhaps be expected.

Jack000 10y ago
maybe I'm missing something, but PLA is just 3d printer filament. There's only two plastics commonly used for extruder-style 3d printers, and they're ABS and PLA.
- obsurveyor 10y ago
  This is a bit out of date. Nylon, PETG, TPE/TPU and polycarbonate are quite common for home 3D printing now as well as a number of hybrid materials.
  - jononor 10y ago
    Polypropylene is coming in too. PVA for water-soluble (mostly as support material).

acd 10y ago

If you scale it up you could 3d print houses from Cellulose. Since 3d printing is inexpensive and the material abundant you can 3d print an outer isolation layer of a honey comb structure, bio inspired from bees. If the outer isolation layer becomes degraded from years of contact with wind and rain you can simply print a new one.

adrianratnapala 10y ago
Is 3d printing really the most efficient way to make such a structure? Could you not pack straws together and then squish them? Could you not make a corrugated sheets like cardboard?
- simonh 10y ago
  Mass 3D printing an item that can already be manufactured through e.g. injection moulding or assembling standardised parts is never going to be efficient at scale. That's not what it's for. Where 3D printing excels is at producing one-offs or short runs, immediate production (no time consuming buildout phase manufacturing moulds and setting up production lines), on-site or mobile manufacturing, or making designs that are not amenable to traditional manufacturing processes such as objects with complex geometries or internal voids.
Fiahil 10y ago
Could we build spaceships with that ?
- gnode 10y ago
  The main factor when designing a spaceship is mass; getting mass into orbit is currently very expensive. You want to use materials which have very high strength to weight ratio, such as aluminium, and carbon fibre.
  - benibela 10y ago
    Can we build a space elevator with this?

agumonkey 10y ago

For the last few months I was wondering if there were a way to implement logic in cellulose ..

jacquesm 10y ago
What application do you have in mind? Cellulose absent water is extremely inert, so inert that we use it as long term information storage, it is also an extremely good insulator. You'd be more likely looking at using the cellulose as a non-conducting carrier than as part of the logic itself.
- Mtinie 10y ago
  Are there an any advantages to using hydrodynamic vs. electrodynamic forces for carrying signals? Hollow cellulose nanotube structures could be printed to carry fluid to different areas of a three dimensional circuit. Would you be able to sacrifice some of the raw "speed" you gain from using electrical current to carry the signals in a traditional PCB if it meant you could work with significantly reduced heat? Or is my rudimentary understanding of the physics here betraying me? Friction is going to exist, so it's quite possible that these types of organic fluid logic gates would be useful for other reasons, but not in the ways I've imagined. Without some(all?) of the electromagnetic changes associated with the continued reduction of die size for traditional electrical circuits, can you build significantly denser (and eventually more powerful) mechanical circuits with fluid-filled cellulose nanotubes?
  - jacquesm 10y ago
    It's prone to rotting in the presence of fluid, if you make it wet I think that would be a quick and messy ending.
    - Mtinie 10y ago
      Good point. Would an oil-based transport fluid mitigate that to some degree, or is the organic nature of cellulose going to be a liability to hurdle to making a durable component regardless of the fluid used?

Tepix 10y ago

This claim is pretty incredible: “After we 3-D print, we restore the hydrogen bonding network through a sodium hydroxide treatment,” Pattinson says. “We find that the strength and toughness of the parts we get … are greater than many commonly used materials” for 3-D printing, including acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) and polylactic acid (PLA).

robert_foss 10y ago
Maybe a bit too incredible. How do thick-walled materials have their hydrogen bonds restored? This process seems rather more involved than regular 3D printing.
- lsaferite 10y ago
  Sounds like they soak the print in a NaOH solution. I imagine if the material is porous enough to evaporate acetone, it's also porous enough to absorb a NaOH solution.
  - digi_owl 10y ago
    Just in case someone else gets bogged down in chemistry, NaOH is better known as lye or caustic soda.
    - lsaferite 10y ago
      They called it Sodium Hydroxide in the article as well. :)
- Para2016 10y ago
  Maybe it doesn't penetrate through the walls entirely - perhaps just the outsides? Sort of analogous to constructing a wide brick wall with the interior filled with rubble?
- marcosdumay 10y ago
  The thing in that photo is quite porous. Also paper is very penetrable by water, so it wouldn't be too surprising. But, well, if it's that simple, just soaking cellulose acetate in NaOH should have a huge number of applications. Maybe even more interesting than this 3D printer. (Gotta try this at home later...)

jlebrech 10y ago

so it's practically paper?

stagbeetle 10y ago
No, it's similar to hard plastic.
- jlebrech 10y ago
  I thought it was plant based
  - stagbeetle 10y ago
    Both plastic and petroleum jelly are petroleum-based, but have drastically different properties. The cellulose polymer acts as hard plastic.
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    Cellulose acetate was one of the first materials used for many of the things we use petroleum based plastics for now. Early Lego were cellulose acetate. It's still used for lots of things.
    - logfromblammo 10y ago
      Cellulose is a very useful chemical. It was generally replaced by petrochemical synthetic polymers for many of its original applications because the latter may be more stable at higher temperatures, under UV light, in contact with certain common chemicals (like water), etc. And most of the petro-plastics are cheaper to manufacture. Cellulosic thermoplastics often appear in products where you don't want the plastic component to last forever, particularly textile fibers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellulose_acetate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellulose_acetate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellulose_triacetate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellulose_triacetate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rayon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rayon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellophane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellophane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyocell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyocell This 3D printing application seems similar to processes used to produce rayon and cellophane, but instead of producing the more universally useful fiber and sheet forms as a commodity, it forms an end-product directly and then stabilizes it chemically.

jszymborski 10y ago

Looks like the website is under heavy load. Here's a mirror: https://archive.fo/eoohY https://archive.fo/eoohY

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

slurple 10y ago

Sounds promising for both 3D printing applications and the need for non-petroleum based plastic-like materials.

aruggirello 10y ago

Just a funny coincidence but, did you see "TreeMaker" origami software just below this thread? :-)