Silicone-based components are an important structural ingredient in innumerable technologies and consumer goods — from electronic devices and automobiles to aircraft and medical devices. High-quality silicone printing is a specialized technological feat that currently depends on a few, very restrictive commercially available systems, using costly proprietary silicones to manufacture structures that are typically not very soft, nullifying one of the primary benefits of the material.
But Thomas Angelini, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE), and Senthilkumar Duraivel, a graduate from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) working out of Angelini’s Soft Matter Lab, have collaborated on an approach to 3D print soft silicone structures like miniscule vascular bodies by turning the conventional process on its head. Their paper for this breakthrough was published in the journal Science on March 23.