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3-D Printer Turns Graphene into Electric Ink
The process could be used to print structures with applications in energy storage and tissue regeneration
Scientific American
Matt Davenport and Chemical & Engineering News
5/6/2015
Excerpt:
Researchers have printed inks containing nanoscopic graphene flakes to build macroscopic, three-dimensional objects that they say could benefit numerous fields, including energy storage and bioengineering.
A team at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has 3-D printed porous, highly compressible aerogels using a graphene oxide ink (Nat. Commun. 2015, DOI: 10.1038/ncomms7962). And researchers at Northwestern University designed tissue scaffolds with ink that contains graphene flakes within a flexible, biocompatible polymer (ACS Nano 2015, DOI:10.1021/acsnano.5b01179).
These are not the first examples of graphene inks. However, scientists are still searching for formulations that fully capitalize on the atomically thin material’s remarkable properties. For example, some existing inks sacrifice mechanical properties for high electrical conductivity.
“We were really trying to avoid making compromises,” says Marcus A. Worsley, who led the Livermore researchers along with his colleague Cheng Zhu. Their goal was to devise a 3-D printing process that allowed conductive flakes to controllably coalesce and ultimately form aerogels: spongelike materials that are about as light as air yet mechanically robust.
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The full article was originally published by Chemical & Engineering News (© American Chemical Society) on April 30, 2015.
View the complete article, including image, at:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...-electric-ink/
The process could be used to print structures with applications in energy storage and tissue regeneration
Scientific American
Matt Davenport and Chemical & Engineering News
5/6/2015
Excerpt:
Researchers have printed inks containing nanoscopic graphene flakes to build macroscopic, three-dimensional objects that they say could benefit numerous fields, including energy storage and bioengineering.
A team at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has 3-D printed porous, highly compressible aerogels using a graphene oxide ink (Nat. Commun. 2015, DOI: 10.1038/ncomms7962). And researchers at Northwestern University designed tissue scaffolds with ink that contains graphene flakes within a flexible, biocompatible polymer (ACS Nano 2015, DOI:10.1021/acsnano.5b01179).
These are not the first examples of graphene inks. However, scientists are still searching for formulations that fully capitalize on the atomically thin material’s remarkable properties. For example, some existing inks sacrifice mechanical properties for high electrical conductivity.
“We were really trying to avoid making compromises,” says Marcus A. Worsley, who led the Livermore researchers along with his colleague Cheng Zhu. Their goal was to devise a 3-D printing process that allowed conductive flakes to controllably coalesce and ultimately form aerogels: spongelike materials that are about as light as air yet mechanically robust.
.................................
The full article was originally published by Chemical & Engineering News (© American Chemical Society) on April 30, 2015.
View the complete article, including image, at:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...-electric-ink/