Future of additive manufacturing: Overview of 4D and 3D printed smart and advanced materials and their applications

Abstract

4D printing is an emerging field in additive manufacturing of time responsive programmable materials. The combination of 3D printing technologies with materials that can transform and possess shape memory and self-healing capabilities means the potential to manufacture dynamic structures readily for a myriad of applications. The benefits of using multifunctional materials in 4D printing create opportunities for solutions in demanding environments including outer space, and extreme weather conditions where human intervention is not possible. The current progress of 4D Printable smart materials and their stimuli-responsive capabilities are overviewed in this paper, including the discussion of shapememory materials, metamaterials, and self-healing materials and their responses to thermal, pH, moisture, light, magnetic and electrical exposures. Potential applications of such systems have been explored to include advancements in health monitoring, electrical devices, deployable structures, soft robotics and tuneable metamaterials.

4D biofabrication via instantly generated graded hydrogel scaffolds

“…Finally, this platform strategy was integrated into the realm of 4D bioprinting, a state of the art biofabrication technology that incorporates time-dependence into 3D bioprinting to confer conformational changes to printed biosamples, which may enable recapitulation of dynamic tissue and organ geometric evolution that occurs during development and regeneration [ 53 ]. A cell-laden hydrogel bar was first printed and photocrosslinked to verify the feasibility of 4D bioprinting.…”

Review on Conductive Polymer/CNTs Nanocomposites Based Flexible and Stretchable Strain and Pressure Sensors

“…Enabling the fabrication of highly customizable sensors capable of sensing excitations beyond the here addressed sensors, as 3D printed biological sensors for replacing human senses as hearing or scaffolds/microfluidic structures sensitive to the presence of microbial activity [ 114 ]. In a very recent work, Ryan et al [ 115 ] suggested the possibility to 3D print materials capable to be responsive to physical and chemical stimuli such as magnetic and electric fields, heat, light, pH and humidity.…”

3D-Printed Objects for Multipurpose Applications

“…The 3D-printed electrode is one of them which can be printed both vertically and horizontally. The incorporation of smart materials or programmable materials that have the stimuli in temperature, water and light in 3D printing has brought a new dimension called 4D printing (Ref 55 ). Sun et al (Ref 56 ) fabricated 4D material by a continuous printing technique.…”