Name: Esther Garcia Tunon Blanca
Supervisor: Prof Eduardo Saiz
Sponsor:EPSRC
As new technologies in key areas such as energy and medicine develop, the demand for state-of-the art fabrication to create complex multifunctional structures and devices also grows. Additive Manufacturing promises a revolution on how things are made, bringing freedom to create completely new designs and more efficient devices. But making all of these a reality demands a major effort in material development, since the commercial applications in AM are now mostly limited to a number of metals and polymers.
In or group, we have been developing a range of water-based formulation based on ‘responsive’ building blocks [1-3] for direct ink writing. These formulations are flexible and easily scalable up. They allow us to design 3D-inks for different materials, from oxide and non-oxide ceramics and metals to chemically modified graphene, enabling the printing of multi material devices. Using these pH and thermo responsive blocks we are able to build 3D scaffolds and devices for a wide range of applications, from calcium phosphates for bone replacement to graphene based materials for energy storage and mechanical sensors.
References:
1. Designing Smart Particles for the Assembly of Complex Macroscopic Structures. E. García-Tuñon, S. Barg, R. Bell, J.V.M. Weaver, C. Walter, L. Goyos, E. Saiz. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 52, p: 7805–7808, 2013.
2. Printing in Three Dimensions with Graphene. E. García-Tuñon, S. Barg, J. Franco, R. Bell, S. Eslava, E. D'Elia, R. C. Maher, F. Guitian, E. Saiz. Adv. Mat., 27(10), p: 1688-1693, 2015.
3. Robocasting of structural ceramic parts with hydrogel inks. E. Feilden, E. García-Tuñon, F. Giulianni, E. Saiz, L. Vandeperre. J. Eur. Ceram. Soc, 36 (10), p: 2525–2533, 2016.