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  • RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT

Soft gels assemble into hard plastic — and it’s recyclable

Sturdy 3D-printed objects can be broken down into materials that can be used to print new objects.
Microgels are printed into a blue Moai figure, left; then the microgels are regenerated and 3D printed again into a red boat.

A 3D-printed sculpture (left) depicts a statue from Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island. The object can be degraded into its constituent microgel particles, which can be printed into a model boat (right). Credit: Alvaro Charlet et al./Small

Researchers 3D printed a model Easter Island head using a novel ink, then degraded the figure into numerous tiny particles, created a new ink from the particles and used this to 3D print a toy boat1.

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Nature 603, 204 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-00590-w

References

  1. Charlet, A., Hirsch, M., Schreiber, S. & Amstad, E. Small https://doi.org/10.1002/smll.202107128 (2022).

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