Professor Jonathan P. singer, from Rutgers University in new Jersey (USA) has developed a technology for deposition of coatings on complex three-dimensional structure throughout their area. It can be used as simple coloring products (including, printed on a 3D printer), and to handle them with special substances. The working title of the technology: “the electric mist”.
Based on Professor singer took a well-known method of electrospray paint, in which the fluid at the exit of the nozzle of a 3D printer is divided into a multitude of drops and passes through the electromagnetic field. Droplets get a charge, and with it the ability to stick to surfaces, which then are held longer due to the adhesive properties of the paint itself. The peculiarity of the method is that the flow of droplets can be directed at different angles from the nozzle, to reach points to which it is impossible to deliver the paint straight jet.
Setting the singer instead of the flow of paint creates a mist, cloud or fog, which also consists of charged particles of paint, only now they fill any three-dimensional volume that will get. If it is a lattice multi-level 3D-printed design, drops deeply penetrate inside her and settle in all available space. They form a polymer film, it is durable enough to maintain shape even when deformation of the base. This property is checked by the filling and drying of painted structures of hydrogel.
Now the team of professors is working on a transitional device, or a new type of nozzle for common 3D printers, that they could not only print, but also painted objects. In parallel, the development of coatings with different properties – just paint a little complex design, we must learn to give them a new useful quality.
Source — Rutgers University