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Duartes Research Project Description Page 1

Investigation of 3D printing technology implementation in a research laboratory

Isabella Duarte Faculty Mentor: Jose L. Lopez, PhD Laboratory of Electrophysics and Atmospheric Plasmas (LEAP) Department of Physics Seton Hall University South Orange, New Jersey, 07079 (USA)

Abstract Three dimensional (3D) printing is an emerging technology that builds objects through an additive process. The desired object is initially designed with computer aided design (CAD) software programs and then manufactured with a 3D printer. This type of technology would be an ideal tool in a research laboratory environment since it gives great results for prototyping. In a research lab, it makes the prototyping process faster and more accurate. With the use of this technology, researchers can try refining different prototypes when searching for better results. The CAD design can be easily modified and printed again reducing the manufacturing time of a new prototype. It also gives researchers an opportunity to experiment with different materials without altering the shape of the model. After obtaining a functioning model, the object or parts can be tested for reproducibility. The final prototype can then be mass produced or printed on demand with the exact same characteristics as the original one. As a case study, we are looking into this fabrication technology to incorporate it into our research work to produce microplasma source reactors, knowing that 3D printing technology is potentially applicable not only to this research area, but can also be applied to many other areas of scientific research.

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Introduction 3D printing is a technology that has been developing for more than 30 years. Years ago, these types of printers had a very low efficiency and very high costs. Today, this technology has been greatly improved, and it is being incorporated into industrial manufacturing processes. A 3D printer transforms CAD data into a physical object. The building process consists in adding very thin layers of material to form the object that has been previously designed. Some of these technologies use a head printer that gradually prints very thin layers of material; other technologies build physical objects by selectively hardening layers of powder with the use of a laser. Printing in three dimensions can be achieved in a range of different materials such as: plastics, metals, glass, and even concrete. Some printers can print objects made of a combination of materials. Initially, 3D printing technology has been mainly used for fast prototyping, but due to great improvements, it is now being used by various companies to manufacture final products.

3D Printing Technologies There are many types of processes used for printing objects in three dimensions. Some of the most common technologies are fused deposition modeling (FDM), stereolithography, and selective laser sintering (SLS). Fused deposition modeling (FDM) consists of a head printer or nozzle that controls the temperature of the material being used. The nozzle melts the material and the material is extruded to form very thin layers that will transform the CAD design into a three dimensional

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object. These thin layers harden after being extruded from the head printer and the nozzle can continue putting more layers of material on top. Printers using this technology print mostly in thermoplastics, but this process is also used to print objects made of metal, concrete, or even chocolate. The technology of stereolithography consists of a platform placed below the surface of a liquid polymer. Then, a laser of ultraviolet light is utilized to harden a layer of photopolymer to form a cross section of the computer model. The platform is slowly lowered, so that the laser can harden another layer of photopolymer. This process continues until the device prints all the cross sections of the model and the previously designed object is formed in its entirety. Selective laser sintering (SLS) is a technique that utilizes a laser to fuse powder particles together. The printing process consists in a thin bed of powder which, similarly to stereolithography, is lowered after the laser has fused a layer of powder corresponding to a cross section of the object. The powder can be metal, ceramic, plastic, or glass. Some of the metals being used in SLS are steel, aluminum, and several alloys. Once all of the layers have been fused together, the excess of powder can be vacuumed and reutilized. All of these 3D printing techniques have the advantage of significantly reducing material waste. However from these techniques, FDM would be the most adequate to use in a research laboratory environment. Small-sized printers can be found using this technique, and they are available using a varied range of materials. In contrast to the SLS technology, we want to avoid the possibility of contaminating the research area with powder materials. Currently, many of the commercial printers being sold utilize this technique of building with a head printer, so the cost

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of these machines is becoming very accessible. An American company called Solidoodle sells these machines for less than five hundred dollars. Currently, the main application of the 3D printing fabrication technique is rapid prototyping. A printer can build almost anything that a human mind can think up. These prototypes can be produced to have very similar characteristics to that of the intended products. This allows researchers, designers, engineers or manufacturers, to test the product without previously going through a costly production. 3D printing has been applied to several fields such as architecture, medical research, and engineering. It is also used to fabricate a variety of final products including: lighting fixtures, jewelry, furniture, shoes, eyewear, and various adornment accessories, among many other things. Manufacturers have been able to create prototypes, final products, or specific parts of a greater product that can be later assembled.

Advantages The building process of a 3D printer can take up to several hours depending on the size of the model. This is a reduced amount of time compared to any other manufacturing process. It is just a matter of having your design and making a click to start transforming it into reality. It allows people to create any object they want in the comfort of their own home, business or laboratory. This makes it very convenient when it comes to thinking about reducing transportation time and costs. Having the advantage of being able to print on-demand, almost completely eliminates the need for storage. The pieces, products, or designs are stored in a computer database only, which replaces the need of storage rooms and shelves for stocking.

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Since the printers work with CAD data, one can highly customize the needed product. In our research work, we would be able to design the microplasma reactor prototypes with specific dimensions and characteristics with the help of a CAD program without having to go through other ineffective manufacturing methods. Currently, we have been producing microplasma source reactor parts by soldering, cutting pieces, and drilling holes to the best of our accuracy. These hand-made and essential pieces in a microplasma reactor are simple, but hand-making them is time-consuming. Also, this process makes it hard to reproduce exact replicas time after time, not to even mention mass producing. 3D printing technology could be an immense improvement for the microplasma source reactor building in the Laboratory of Electrophysics and Atmospheric Plasmas (LEAP).

Figure 1: Holder 6 holes Zachary Darby, 2013

Figure 2: Holder 3 holes Zachary Darby, 2013

Application for a Research Environment

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For our research purposes, 3D printing would be an ideal tool for building microplasma reactors. When working in a research lab, many of the parts a researcher needs to build cannot be purchased in a store or ordered online. Researchers utilize instruments that help them build things on their own to fit certain characteristics. This includes drills, cutting instruments, welding and soldering tools, etc. These fabrication processes can be very slow and inefficient. In our research lab, we are looking into the 3D printing technology to build specific parts that make up the microplasma reactors such as the plastic spacers and holders of the microplasma electrodes.

Plasmas and Microplasma Plasma is one of the four states of matter. Plasma is considered to be distinct from the three more familiar states of solid, liquid and gas because of its unique behaviors and characteristics. Unlike the other states of matter, plasma contains a significant amount of ionized particles. This ionization can be induced to transform a gas into plasma by adding a significant amount of heat or another type of energy such as electrical energy. Once enough particles constituting the gas have been electrically charged, it is considered to be a plasma. Plasma is known to be the most common state of matter making up about 99% of the visible universe. Natural examples of plasmas are stars and lightning bolts. Plasmas of very small dimension (from millimeter to micron dimensions) are known as microplasmas. Microplasmas are unique because they can be produced at atmospheric pressure and do not create large gas temperatures. These are the types of plasmas produced by the microplasma reactors built in our research laboratory. We produce hot or non-thermal microplasmas which are maintained to have temperatures that do not really exceed room

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temperature at standard room pressure. These two characteristics of microplasmas are a key to allowing its use in a variety of fields. Microplasma reactors generate ozone (O 3) which are used for environmental remediation and disinfection such as water treatment and odor elimination. Killing bacteria and viruses is a characteristic of microplasmas that are also utilized for disinfecting surgical instruments and wounds. Because of this, there is a wide range of uses into which microplasma can be applied in the medical field. The microplasmas produced in our reactors are generated using regular atmospheric air. In order to prevent these air plasmas from becoming arc or uncontrollable lightning bolts, we use special conducting metals and glass materials for our electrodes. We further use special kinds of plastic spacers and holders that are chemically inert and can withstand large electrical heat. These plastic spacers and holders would ideally be manufactured using 3D printers. The ability to quickly and repetitively print these key plastic components will greatly reduce the current

necessary construction time of the microplasma source reactors. By cutting back on the reactors manufacturing time, we would then be able to spend more time researching the physics and chemistry of the generated microplasmas.
Figure 3: Reactor Zachary Darby, 2013

Experiments Once we have designed and built a reactor using 3D printing technology, we will seek to characterize the generated microplasmas through electrical characterization and optical emission

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spectroscopy. The electrical characterization will give us an idea of the electric potential or voltage, electrical current, and electrical power consumption of the microplasmas. Through simple optical emission spectroscopy, we will study the commonly created chemical species of these microplasmas in air. Once we have a characteristic understanding of the electrical and optical nature of these microplasmas created by these 3D printer assisted reactors, we will do a longer term reproducibility study of the reactors. We will study if supposedly identically constructed microplasma sources will perform identically generating similar microplasmas. This study of reactor design reproducibility is a key area that has not been researched deeply. The main obstacle to this study of reproducibility of reactors has been limited as reactors are made by hand introducing tolerance and precision error from reactor to reactor. With the aid of a 3D printer, we will have a tool that could potentially allow for consistent design, identical manufacturing methods, and accurate reproducibility in our microplasma source reactors. The understanding of the exact reproducibility of reactors would provide a key insight in our research work further helping other microplasma researchers follow similar reactor designs to test our scientific discoveries.

Conclusions The manufacturing technology of 3D printing has begun to emerge as a very effective manufacturing process. With advantages such as customization, reduced material waste, digital storage, and local onsite manufacturing abilities, 3D printing can be applied to a variety of

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production fields including research laboratories. Specifically, 3D printing technology could be incorporated into the production of microplasma reactors which have various applications of their own in the medical and environmental fields. This additive technology could improve and broaden the experimental testing of the microplasma properties research in the Laboratory of Electrophysics and Atmospheric Plasmas (LEAP) at Seton Hall University. The process of having an idea, developing, producing, testing, and consistently reproducing with 3D printers would allow for faster and more accurate scientific research work.