Engineers from the University of New South Wales found that when the 3D printing material is broken, just adding "special powder" to the liquid resin during the printing process, and then directly irradiating it with a UV LED lamp can quickly and easily help the material to self-repair, and the repaired material is stronger than before.

Original paper:

The powdery additive used by the team at the University of New South Wales is a kind of trithiocarbonate, which is called reversible addition fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) agent and was originally developed by CSIRO. RAFT preparation can rearrange the nano-network elements that make up the material, and allow the broken pieces to be fused.

Experiments on the violin including 3D printing show that the strength of the self-healing plastic has completely recovered compared with the original state. The team said that compared with the existing methods of repairing damaged 3D printed materials, their system is simple, fast and commercially feasible.

"With our system, you can leave the broken plastic in place and then shine light on the whole part. Only the additives on the surface of the material are affected, so it is easier to repair and faster. "

This means that broken plastic parts don't need to be discarded or even recycled, and even if embedded in parts containing many other materials, they can be simply repaired. Compared with the existing methods of repairing damaged 3D printing materials, this method is simple, fast and feasible for commercialization. With the further development and commercialization in the future, it will also help to reduce chemical waste.

Under the background of peak carbon dioxide emissions and carbon neutrality, the environmental protection industry and new technological changes have brought new opportunities for the development of 3D printing plastics industry. According to AMPOWER's market research, the global market size of polymer (plastic) 3D printing will be 5.14 billion euros (about 40.2 billion RMB) in 2020. It is estimated that the overall plastic 3D printing market including polymer 3D printing systems, materials and parts production will reach 10.5 billion euros (about 82.2 billion RMB) in 2025.

In addition, due to the high labor cost, a large number of plastic packaging products in Europe and the United States are imported from developing countries, and 3D printing allows them to achieve localized and decentralized production. Based on 3D printing technology, 3D printers can be directly deployed in factories, or 3D printing service centers can be built locally to radiate factories within a certain range, so that energy can be saved by 41% to 64%.