Graphene 3D Lab Announces Water-Soluble 3D Printer Filament

TenLinks ^ | April 29, 2015

[2ndDivisionVet]

NEW YORK, NY, Apr 29, 2015 – Graphene 3D Lab Inc. will announce details of a newly-developed water-soluble 3D filament at the Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters’ (CME) Canada Makes: Additive Manufacturing Forum at Mohawk College in Hamilton, Ontario on April 30, 2015. The water-soluble filament is the latest in a line of specialty-functional filaments that Graphene 3D is introducing to the 3D printing industry.

Elena Polyakova, chief operating officer of Graphene 3D, will present details on the new water-soluble filament and discuss the effect of graphene-enhanced materials for the 3D printing industry.

Water-soluble filaments are primarily used to occupy negative space during a 3D print. These filaments are essentially used to fill gaps designed in objects and allow the print to be suspended over air. Following the completion of the printing process, the object can be placed in water, and the water-soluble material will completely dissolve, leaving empty space.

Daniel Stolyarov, president and chief executive officer, stated, “We are very pleased with performance characteristics that our R&D team designed into this new industry leading filament. This filament is completely environmentally-friendly, non-toxic, dissolves completely in water in approximately 1 hour, and leaves no residual material.” The water-soluble filament will work in most commercially available 3D printers and Graphene 3D expects to have them to market within 3 months. Daniel continues, “This filament reflects the core objectives of Graphene 3D. We are creating products that allow innovative designers to do more with 3D printing and are expanding the possibilities within the 3D printing environment.”

About Graphene 3D

Graphene 3D is in the business of developing, manufacturing and marketing specialty 3D printer materials, including proprietary nanocomposite materials for various types of 3D printing. The Company is also involved in the design, manufacture and marketing of 3D printers and related products for domestic and international customers.

The Graphene 3D research and production facility is located in Calverton, NY and is equipped with material processing and analytical equipment. The company has four US patent applications pending for its technology. For more information on Graphene 3D Lab Inc., visit www.graphene3dlab.com.

[jonrick46]

Will this technology be used to print complex human body parts?

[2ndDivisionVet]

Not this, but they’re close to doing that with human cells.

[jonrick46]

From what's out there, this may be the technology for it:

How to print an Organ?

What to do about the shortage of human organ donors? An emerging branch of medicine, called organ printing (future vision alert), takes a patient’s own healthy cells and uses a printer, cell-based ‘bio-ink’ and ‘bio-paper’ to create tissue to repair a damaged organ.

“Scientists and engineers can use the 3D bio printers to enable placing cells of almost any type into a desired pattern in 3D,” says Keith Murphy, CEO of Organovo – the San Diego based company who will supply the devices institutions investigating human tissue repair and organ replacement.

“Researchers can place liver cells on a preformed scaffold, support kidney cells with a co-printed scaffold, or form adjacent layers of epithelial and stromal soft tissue that grow into a mature tooth. Ultimately the idea would be for surgeons to have tissue on demand for various uses, and the best way to do that is get a number of bio-printers into the hands of researchers and give them the ability to make three dimensional tissues on demand.”

Building human organs cell-by-cell was considered science fiction not that long ago, but now rapidly becomes science faction. Yet another step in the blending of the ‘made’ and the ‘born’.

Via: Livescience.com.

[Kirkwood]

In a sense. It can create a framework for cells to grow on and around.

[bajabaja]

This might be a post for comrade Null and Void.

To me, water soluble plastic means that support buttresses can be more easily removed. Right now: dremel.

[null and void]

3-D Printer Ping!

Some day her prints will come…

[roadcat]

To me, water soluble plastic means that support buttresses can be more easily removed. Right now: dremel.

I would love to use a water soluble support structure. I've built objects from Nylon (stronger and more flexible than ABS), and it takes me a long time using a Dremel tool to remove the support structures. Would sure be nice to just dunk the build in a water tank and let the water do the work for me.

[bajabaja]

I use ABS’s ugly step sister, PLA. Sometimes I can break off the support when at its thinnest, but it always leaves traces on the remaining structure. With ABS can’t you use acetone to smooth the remaining structure? (I stick with PLA as it doesn’t require a heated print bed.) Going to upgrade to a delta from a cartesian printer. Having fun when things work.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks 2ndDivisionVet.

[GOPJ]

Thanks Civ

[SunkenCiv]

My pleasure. SpaceX is about to test their abort system for their spacecraft, a step needed to get it man-rated. The engines used are entirely fabricated on a 3D printer.

[roadcat]

I do use acetone to smooth my ABS projects. Small projects, because all I have is a rice cooker to heat the acetone. Both ABS and PLA don’t hold up for certain things I make, for instance feet for my printer; they eventually crack and break. Hence my use of Taulman 645 nylon, very tough but flexible and it can be dyed any color. Problem is, it’s so tough that the support structures don’t easily separate and are hard to remove. I use a combination of Exacto knives and Dremel bits to carve away the unwanted material, and that is time-consuming. The nylon is great for making thin-walled objects with sharp angles, that can be snapped on to other things without breaking from the flexing. But difficult to build without support because of making thin-walled angles etc. My printer has two extruder heads, always a challenge printing with, would be an interesting experiment to print both nylon and a water-soluable filament and get them to bond if they can.

[bajabaja]

What temperature do you run your nylon at? 215 C is great for my MakerGear M2 filament (in house brand), I doubt my extruder would handle what is likely a higher extrusion temp for nylon. Thanks. Helps a lot to ask of someone who has been there and done it.

[roadcat]

I believe I’ve been running the temp at 240 C, regardless of whether it’s nylon or ABS. Anyway, I haven’t adjusted the extruder temp regardless of the filament type. One thing I make sure of doing is to back out the nylon filament after printing, then swapping to ABS so as not to jam up the extruder nozzle. Maybe I run it too hot is why I encounter some clogs and the subsequent cooking inside he nozzle, no fun to clean out. Also, nylon absorbs a lot of moisture and can spit unless dried beforehand. The spitting can cause jams. When it works, it’s great stuff.

[bajabaja]

Thanks for those types. Will build a delta and go nylon.