Low cost metal 3D printing! Electrochemical additive manufacturing

3D printing is a process which allows for the creation of complex objects not possible with traditional manufacturing techniques. Most 3D printing techniques are based on plastics however metal additive manufacturing has been growing in popularity due to the high strength components they make. Selective laser melting is the most common form of metal 3D printing, however this is extremely expensive due to the lasers, inert gases and other supporting systems.

Here we show how a low cost desktop metal 3D printer can be made through an electrochemical additive manufacturing process. This leverages off the decades worth of development in the electrodeposition process but localises this into a movable print head. We demonstrate that this approach can also be multi-material, allowing for the creation of bi-metallic structures with thermally responsible characteristics.

00:00 Introduction
00:24 What is 3D printing?
01:26 The different types of 3D printing
03:23 Selective laser melting for metals
04:21 Electroplating
05:35 Electrochemical 3D printing
06:38 What does the printer look like?
07:12 Copper deposition morphology - From dense to dendritic
07:42 Multi-metal electrochemical 3D printing
08:25 Bi-metallic structures
09:47 Summary

This works is mostly based on 2 papers we have previously published which are linked below:

A low cost desktop electrochemical metal 3D printer. Chen et al. Advanced Materials Technologies. 2017. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/a...
Multi-metal 4D printing with a desktop electrochemical 3D printer. Chen et al. Scientific Reports. 2019. https://www.nature.com/articles/s4159...

#3Dprinting #Metal #AdditiveManufacturing

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