Professionals of all kindsfrom artists to architects to scientistshave been drawing inspiration from nature for millennia.
Now, engineers have managed to produce extremely fine fibers inspired by spider silk and hagfish slime.
A team of international researchers has used a new 3D-printing technique to create microfibers just 1.5 microns thick.
A structure made via embedded 3D printing.© M. Tanver Hossain
We knew it had to be possible.
Hossain and his teams technique, called embedded printing, involved depositing material into a gel mold.
This prevents the filament from snapping because its almost instantaneously solid.
In fact, Hossain and his colleagues were able to print fibers just 1.5 microns thick.
For comparison, paper is usually between 50 and 200 microns thick.
The slimesincredible versatilitycomes from its microfibers.
Hagfish Slime Is Wonderful
We adopted embedded 3D printing as a method to mimic these threads, said Eom.
This allows us to produce complex 3D hair, having fine diameters, using an ultraprecise 3D printer.
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