3D Bioplotter Research Papers

The increasing use of electronic devices raises concerns about resource availability and end-of-life management, particularly regarding conductors for interconnects and sensing elements. While gold and silver are the leading materials for interconnects, they pose challenges related to scarcity, cost, and toxicity. Zinc offers a promising alternative due to its good electrical conductivity, non-toxicity, abundance, and affordability. However, challenges in achieving high conductivity and waste generation from processing techniques like screen-printing remain. To address this, a zinc ink optimizes for 3D printing is proposed, using active zinc particles in a shellac matrix. The methods, including chemical and photonic sintering, achieve conductivities…

Whereas the rigid nature of standard thermoelectrics limits their use, flexible thermoelectric platforms can find much broader applications, for example, in low-power, wearable energy harvesting for internet-of-things applications. Here we realize continuous, flexible thermoelectric threads via a rapid extrusion of 3D-printable composite inks (Bi2Te3 n- or p-type micrograins within a non-conducting polymer as a binder) followed by compression through a roller-pair, and we demonstrate their applications in flexible, low-power energy harvesting. The thermoelectric power factors of these threads are enhanced up to 7 orders-of-magnitude after lateral compression, principally due to improved conductivity resulting from reduced void volume fraction and partial…