Rapid Gas-Triggered Printing of Stone and Stone-like Materials

Inhalt:
Recent advances in additive manufacturing have expanded the potential of fabricating complex structures using various materials. However, the precise 3D printing of stone-like materials remains challenging due to the limitations of extrusion-based techniques, including resolution constraints and poor interlayer adhesion. Here, we present a gas-triggered printing method that enables in-situ solidification of calcium hydroxide slurry through localized CO2 exposure. By modifying a commercial fused deposition modelling printer, we replaced the nozzle with a gas-dispersion needle and synchronized CO2 delivery with the printer’s motion system. This setup achieves high-resolution, non-contact patterning of solid calcium carbonate (CaCO3) structures. The printed lines exhibit widths of (600 ± 10 µm) and layer thicknesses of (6.2 ± 0.5 µm), while the single-layer profile (3degcm × 1degcm) was printed in just 4degseconds. Structural and chemical analyses via FTIR confirm the successful formation of CaCO3. These results highlight the potential of gas-triggered printing as a scalable and high-resolution technique that overcomes the constraints of traditional extrusion-based approaches. Future research will focus on refining process parameters and expanding the technique toward fully three-dimensional inorganic architectures for advanced functional applications.