3D printing has a lot of applications, which means the technology is being used in a wide range of industries. Whether it’s 3D printed houses, fashion materials, or rocket ships, its adoption is sure to continue to spread across sectors — especially since it offers the potential for increasing sustainability in supply chains. But, before exploring some of the latest and most innovative startups, trends, and tech, let’s quickly break down how 3D printing actually works.
Essentially, it takes a digital model and prints it out as a three-dimensional, solid object. The 3D printer slices the digital model into hundreds (or thousands) of horizontal layers, like a bunch of 2D sheets stacked on top of one another, and then prints the object with whatever material it is using at the time — just like inks.
The process is much cheaper than traditional manufacturing, offers more compact printers, and has the ability to use a wider array of materials, often recycled or sustainable types. So, with that out of the way, here are a few ways it’s being used to innovate across different industries.
3D Printer That Can Use Unknown Materials
One downside to 3D printing has been its complexity — the process often requires tedious programming and data to create correct printing parameters (I mean, think about how hard it can be to figure out how to print 2D stuff!).
Using upcycled or renewable materials with many unknown qualities makes the process extra difficult. A new 3D printer could change all of that.
Researchers from MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms, the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the National Center for Scientific Research in Greece have developed a groundbreaking model capable of generating printing parameters for unknown materials. The group still has to fine-tune the technology, which is geared toward making 3D printing more sustainable, but progress is well on its way.
Photo Courtesy MIT
LEGO-Like 3D Printed Homes
The homebuilding industry won’t be transitioning to completed 3D-printed houses any time soon, at least not in the expected way. While 3D printing something small, like a shoe, is easier to do, printing a house would require a massive machine — bigger than the house being printed “massive.”
So, while that remains unlikely, prefabricated modular homes are a different story. The materials for the houses are 3D printed off-site and later assembled at the location to create completed, cost-effective, sustainable structures. A growing number of 3D printing-focused prefab housing startups are active in the U.S. and abroad, offering different types of modular kits for residences and even entire communities in some cases.
Photo Courtesy PERI
A 3D Printed Fashion Future
According to an NBC News report, almost $500 billion worth of clothing goes to waste annually. What’s more, the fashion industry is one of the largest sources of pollution worldwide, so there’s clearly a lot of waste to reduce, emissions to slash, and carbon to capture. A growing number of researchers are using the help of 3D printing to increase sustainability in textile manufacturing processes.
A team from the University of Art and Design Linz is developing more sustainable fashion production processes by combining 3D printing techniques and new types of biomaterials. Instead of focusing on boosting the efficiency of current fast fashion models, the research team is working to create entirely new production methods.
The 3D printing tech will allow it to test different types of recyclable and eco-friendly biomaterials and work on ways to repair and rework old fabrics and clothing with the help of robots and artificial intelligence.
On a different front, designer Michele Di Carlo released the concept for a pair of resizable 3D-printed shoes. The 4Steps, a children’s footwear design still in prototyping, is made of lightweight, durable materials that can fit up to five different shoe sizes, literally growing with the wearer’s feet.
Video Courtesy Michele Di Carlo
The Future
There are countless innovations, startups, and trends based around 3D printing technology that were left out, and that’s because new ones launch every single day. Any disbelief can be cured by a quick Google search of “3D printing.”
With innovation comes failure, and there’s a high chance that some of the covered trends will end up not working out. However, 3D printing itself is already being used, and it still shows even more promise as the world continues to shift toward more sustainable products, materials, and supply chains.
