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It is no secret that we’re fans of Dansk AM Hub, the Danish national 3D printing body. The organization has a rather cost-effective way of marshaling the resources of a…

Industrial 3D printers are those used by companies on the factory floor, generally for manufacturing end products. In a lot of cases, they can also be used for making items…

Researchers from the University of Birmingham published a paper that reviews various methods and materials related to the scope of food 3D printing, which they write is “an area of…

Near the peak of food 3D printing hype, circa 2014, one European project garnered a good deal of attention for its exciting work in food fabrication The PERFORMANCE project, which…

In our previous articles in this series, we discussed the history leading up to the development of electronics 3D printing, as well as one of the two dominant methods for…

As we’ve explored in our food 3D printing series, the technology is still emerging, with only a handful of food printing processes really approaching any form of maturity and level…

Perhaps the holiest of holy grails for the additive manufacturing (AM) industry is the fabrication of complete, functional goods within a single print operation. Rather than produce individual parts that…

As we already began to discuss in part one of this series, there are already a handful of companies that offer electronics 3D printing platforms and services. Perhaps the most…

In our already-climate-disrupted world, we are inundated with petro-based plastics. We could rehash the numerous statistics that we probably already know, like the fact that only 9 percent of plastic…

The concept of distributed manufacturing, which we’ve covered numerous times, could play an interesting role in a climate-disrupted world. Just as large swaths of a centralized electrical grid can suddenly…

In this series so far, we’ve discussed the many ways that additive manufacturing (AM) can fit into our already climate-disrupted world, as well as the many obstacles yet to be…

Immediately in the wake of Hurricane Maria, small communities in Puerto Rico found themselves relying on the few sites that maintained electricity after the island’s gas power plant went offline….

If industrialized society is determined to maintain its industrial activities, its engineers will need to completely rethink how parts are designed in order to improve energy efficiency. This is true…

In trying to prevent the total collapse of our natural ecosystem, we can work toward building a circular ecosystem of goods production and consumption. The goal of a circular economy…

In our series on 3D printing in a climate-disrupted world, we have been exploring the variety of biodegradable bioplastics that could be used to replace petro-based materials. We have so…

If we plan on continuing to make plastics past the point that oil is no longer profitable, easily accessible or socially acceptable, we will need to turn to more ecologically…

In our last article in our series covering 3D printing in a climate-disrupted world, we discussed the myriad problems associated with polylactic acid (PLA), the most popular plastic and bioplastic…

While our ecosystem is collapsing, we are at the very least fortunate to witness the rise of a potentially more sustainable form of manufacturing coinciding with the rise of potentially…

Given the global shift to renewable energy, fossil fuel companies are looking for new ways to maintain their livelihoods. In a 2018 investor report, ExxonMobil admitted to a decline in…

Now that we’ve covered the roots and present state of carbon fiber 3D printing, including current research, we should take a look at where carbon fiber goes to die—or, to…

So far in our series on 3D printing carbon fiber and other reinforcement materials, we’ve discussed much about the present state of the technology, including large-scale composite deposition and some of…

One topic we’ve skirted around in our carbon fiber series so far is large-scale composite printing processes. The reason for this is because it is both a big topic, literally…

In the first part of our series on carbon fiber 3D printing, we discussed how the material is used in the larger world of manufacturing. As we’ve learned throughout this…

In parts one, two and three of this series, we’ve discussed the variety of technological developments taking place in the 3D printing of composites but have not yet covered the…