Selective laser sintering of composite biobased powder
First printings with Selective Laser Sintering of fully composite biobased powders from vegetal waxes and lignocellulosic powders ! A challenging work that was made possible thanks to a collaboration with the University of Auckland’s Creative Design and Additive Manufacturing Lab.
Michael French and Elliot Soffe students at the university of Auckland have demonstrated during their Part 4 project that fully biobased composite powder developped in the framework of the SmartPop Project can be printed in tradtional Selective Laser Sintering machine.
How does the milling influence of the properties of lignocellulosic powders ?
Lignocellulosic biomass has many functionalities that hold huge potential for material, energy or chemistry applications. To support advanced applications, the biomass must be milled into ultrafine powder to increase reactivity. This milling unit operation needs to be fully mastered to deliver high-quality standard end-products.
This research article describes the properties of two lignocellulosic biomasses milled into very fine powders in three different balls mills. The aim of this work was to understand how the working principle of the milling devices shapes key properties of the milled powders for various end-use applications (3D-printed biocomposites, powder feedstock for lignocellulosic biofuel, source of platform molecules for green chemistry).
3D Scanning in research, an example of a project between SCION and CAWTHRON institutes
3D scanning is used to produce accurate 3D models of objects. Some hand-held scanners can pick up extremely fine detail and surface texture, with dimensional accuracy of 0.1mm. Some scanners can record colour too. 3D scanning can be used for a range of applications. It can be used to reverse engineer a part, or it can also be used for reproduction; for example if a designer needs to design something to fit with an existing part, the existing part could be scanned and used in the CAD design.
A new step toward 4D printing with grafted fluoresent lignocellulosic powders
Our new article about bringing new functionalites to biobased materials by combining lignocellulosic powders and 3 D printing is now avaialble in open access in Industrial Crops and Products Journal.
In this article, we demonstrated that fluorescently-grafted flax shives incorporated into a filament are suitable for 3D printing. The printed materials reveals sensitivity to pH. This work paves the way to the use of functionalized lignocellulosic biomasses as reinforcements into composites and design 4D materials with potential applications as sensors depending on the fluorophore used.
Entering the 4th dimension using 3D printing
3D printing or additive manufacturing using smart materials has led to the emergence of something called 4D printing. Smart materials are known to react to certain external stimuli such as heat, humidity, pH or changes in electric and magnetic field. Once the object has been printed, it can store (or ‘remember’) its permanent shape; be deformed to another shape and then come back to its initial form by applying the stimulus.
Some useful data about the milling of lignocellulosic biomasses
The milling of plant powder is never straightforward. The size, shape and properties of the resulting powder depend on the nature of the biomass and the milling device used.
The technological research platform PLANET (Platform for Processing of PLANt product with Emerging Technologies) from the JRU IATE, in collaboration with the ICO research team just published a data paper gathering a set of data about the milling of numerous agricultural and wood by-products in the data and brief journal.
The lignocellulosic biomass, a wonderful reservoir of functional elements
By Claire Mayer-Laigle
| Jan 22, 2021
| biomass
Plant biomass represents a almost-unlimited reservoir of functional elements, which are buried within large macrostructure assemblies. The fine milling of biomass leads to physical and chemical changes. This can be seen as an obstacle because it modifies the flowability and the processability of the powder, but although it can be an asset, to functionalize the powders and enhance the performances of the target products.
The aim of the project is to investigate these modifications and to exploit them in the design of environmentally friendly materials using additive manufacturing.