Yanliang Zhang, associate professor at the University of Notre Dame, has developed a new 3D printing method that could prove revolutionary in the field of materials discovery and manufacturing. The high-throughput combinatorial printing (HTCP) process developed by the professor allows for the production of materials that are not feasible using traditional methods.
Material development significantly accelerated
Using the HTCP process, both the 3D architecture and the local composition of the printed materials can be controlled, resulting in materials with different compositions and properties at microscale spatial resolution.
A single print nozzle contains multiple aerosol inks of nanomaterials. By combining these and adjusting the mixing ratio of the inks during the printing process. the discovery time for new materials can be reduced to a few months. In-situ mixing and printing in the aerosol phase allows the mixing ratio of a wide range of materials to be tuned instantly on the fly. Conventional multi-material printing with starting materials in the liquid-liquid or solid-solid phase does not offer this important feature.
The great potential of this HTCP method is to speed up the development of new materials, normally a slow and labor-intensive process.
"Normally, it takes 10 to 20 years to discover a new material," explains Yanliang Zhang, associate professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering at the University of Notre Dame. "If we could shorten that time to less than a year - or even a few months - it would be a game-changer in the discovery and production of new materials."
High-performance materials through HTCP method
The HTCP method enables the production of versatile material libraries. On the one hand, gradient layers of metals, nitrides, carbides, chalcogenides, halides, and even seemingly incompatible materials can be produced, and on the other hand, materials with unique structural arrangements and superior properties can be developed that outperform their constitutive materials with homogeneous compositions.
Functionally graded materials that exhibit a gradual transition from stiff to soft can also be produced with HTCP. This property makes them particularly valuable for biomedical applications that require compatibility between soft tissues and rigid, wearable or implantable devices.
This technique has already been used by Zhang and his team to identify a semiconductor material with exceptional thermoelectric properties, contributing to advances in energy harvesting and cooling applications.
Potential applications in a variety of industries
The ability to rapidly fabricate materials with different compositions and properties at the microscale opens up exciting opportunities for various industries. Including for green energy, electronics and biomedical devices.
In the future, Zhang plans to combine HTCP with machine learning and artificial intelligence to further accelerate materials discovery and development. His team is working to develop an autonomous and self-controlling process for materials discovery and device fabrication.
The full publication (Zeng, M., Du, Y., Jiang, Q. et al. High-throughput printing of combinatorial materials from aerosols. Nature 617, 292-298 (2023)) can be found here.
