{"id":167060,"date":"2023-07-07T08:23:53","date_gmt":"2023-07-07T13:23:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/07\/revolutionary-gel-allows-metal-items-to-be-3d-printed-at-room-temperature"},"modified":"2023-07-07T08:23:53","modified_gmt":"2023-07-07T13:23:53","slug":"revolutionary-gel-allows-metal-items-to-be-3d-printed-at-room-temperature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/07\/revolutionary-gel-allows-metal-items-to-be-3d-printed-at-room-temperature","title":{"rendered":"Revolutionary gel allows metal items to be 3D printed at room temperature"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"display: block; margin: 0 auto; width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 4\/3; object-fit: contain;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xFxo1Ah8EAc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope;\n   picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Although there are several methods of 3D-printing metal objects, all of them involve the application of heat \u2013 which isn\u2019t conducive to producing certain heat-sensitive electronics, among other things. A new gel, however, can be used to print such items at room temperature.<\/p>\n<p>Created by a team of scientists at North Carolina State University, the material starts out as a solution consisting of copper microparticles suspended in water. Microparticles of another metal, known as eutectic gallium indium alloy (EGaIn) are then added, as is hydrochloric acid.<\/p>\n<p>The latter sets the pH of the water to 1.0, removing oxides from the EGaln and thus <i>temporarily<\/i> turning it to a liquid-metal state. This causes the EGaln particles (now globules) to cling to the firmer copper particles, forming a network of copper particles connected by EGaln bridges. Methylcellulose is also added, to bulk up the mixture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Although there are several methods of 3D-printing metal objects, all of them involve the application of heat \u2013 which isn\u2019t conducive to producing certain heat-sensitive electronics, among other things. A new gel, however, can be used to print such items at room temperature. Created by a team of scientists at North Carolina State University, the [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":556,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1489,1635],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-167060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-3d-printing","category-materials"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/556"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167060\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}