Recent Progress in Biomimetic Additive Manufacturing Technology: From Materials to Functional Structures

Abstract

Nature has developed high-performance materials and structures over millions of years of evolution and provides valuable sources of inspiration for the design of next-generation structural materials, given the variety of excellent mechanical, hydrodynamic, optical, and electrical properties. Biomimicry, by learning from nature's concepts and design principles, is driving a paradigm shift in modern materials science and technology. However, the complicated structural architectures in nature far exceed the capability of traditional design and fabrication technologies, which hinders the progress of biomimetic study and its usage in engineering systems. Additive manufacturing (three-dimensional (3D) printing) has created new opportunities for manipulating and mimicking the intrinsically multiscale, multimaterial, and multifunctional structures in nature. Here, an overview of recent developments in 3D printing of biomimetic reinforced mechanics, shape changing, and hydrodynamic structures, as well as optical and electrical devices is provided. The inspirations are from various creatures such as nacre, lobster claw, pine cone, flowers, octopus, butterfly wing, fly eye, etc., and various 3D-printing technologies are discussed. Future opportunities for the development of biomimetic 3D-printing technology to fabricate next-generation functional materials and structures in mechanical, electrical, optical, and biomedical engineering are also outlined.

Directed Printing and Reconfiguration of Thermoresponsive Silica‐pNIPAM Nanocomposites

“…Such structural reconfiguration is widely observed in plants, insects, and animals. While the origin of shape change in the natural world is buried in centuries of evolution, mimicking such unusual abilities is the key to design intelligent materials that respond and adapt to environmental conditions . Recent developments in engineering design have enabled the fabrication of new materials which dynamically reconfigure in response to external stimuli such as temperature, light, and external fields .…”

“…Three‐dimensional (3D) printing is at the center of manufacturing breakthrough for fabrication of materials at a broad spectrum of scales in many different disciplines including biomedicine, and structural engineering . However, printing high‐resolution adaptive structures that change shape in response to external temperatures remains a challenge . Recently, Gladman et al used paste extrusion technique to print thermoresponsive bilayer structures that reconfigure into complex 3D shapes, and the method was termed as four‐dimensional (4D) printing.…”

A Review on Artificial Micro/Nanomotors for Cancer-Targeted Delivery, Diagnosis, and Therapy

“…Self-propelled micro/ nanomotors, an emerging and powerful agent that is capable for effectively converting diverse energy sources into driving forces and autonomous movement [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20], have gained considerable attention in the field of tumor diagnostics and treatment. Self-propelled micro/nanomotors not only inherit the excellent properties of micro/nanomaterials, such as high surface area and activity, but also demonstrate the distinct feature of autonomous motion capacity, which both results in highly efficient bioseparation and in precise delivery of imaging agents or drugs to the subcellular target in tumors [21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30]. The active propulsion of these motors plays a key role for their biomedical applications.…”

A Chirality/Light Dual‐Responsive Calixarene‐Functionalized Gold Surface for the Separation of Naproxen Enantiomers

“…[3] Chiral recognition and separation of biologically important molecules have attained greater significance in recent years. However, methods to regulate the recognition and separation of chiral molecule through weak non-covalent bonding interaction are highly important, because they also can be applied for control release of chiral drugs, [4] intelligent microfluids [5] and other biotechnological applications. [6] Supramolecular or non-covalent bonding interaction, such as hydrogen bonding, Van der Waals interaction, ionic interaction and host-guest interaction, can be fine-tuned to create a molecular self-assembly at specific configuration, which can be well utilized for enantioselective recognition and separation.…”