3D printing has changed the way we create custom products like hearing aids, mouth guards, and dental implants.
One common technique used is called vat photopolymerization. It works by shining light on a liquid resin to solidify it into shapes, one layer at a time.
But there’s a problem—this process also creates extra support structures to hold parts in place while printing, and those supports usually have to be broken off by hand and thrown away.
A team of engineers at MIT has come up with a smarter way to do this. They’ve invented a new type of resin that reacts differently to different types of light.
When exposed to ultraviolet (UV) light, it turns into a strong and durable material.
When hit with visible light, the same resin turns into a solid that dissolves easily in common solutions, even something as gentle as baby oil.
This means that the main product and its supports can be printed at the same time using different light sources.
The supports don’t need to be broken off manually anymore—they can simply be washed away by dipping the printed object in a liquid.
What’s more, the dissolved support material can be recycled back into the resin mixture and reused in the next printing job. This could dramatically reduce waste and save time.
The team demonstrated their new method by printing complex items like moving gear systems, detailed lattices, and even a small dinosaur model inside an egg-shaped support that later disappeared in a solution.
They also printed real-world items like dental implants, showing that this method could be used in healthcare and other industries that need personalized parts.
Creating this special resin wasn’t easy. At first, the UV light used in regular 3D printers wasn’t strong enough to make the material tough enough.
The team fixed this by adding a third chemical that helped “bridge” the resin molecules together, forming a more solid structure under UV light. This allowed them to print both the strong parts and the dissolvable supports in one go using a mix of UV and visible light.
This breakthrough could change how 3D printing is done in the future. Instead of throwing away support materials, companies could reuse them again and again. The researchers are now working on making the resin even stronger and more suitable for different types of products.
According to MIT professor John Hart, the team hopes to combine this method with automated handling systems, creating a more cost-effective and environmentally friendly way to produce 3D-printed parts at scale.
This could help make 3D printing more sustainable, especially as it becomes more common in industries like healthcare, manufacturing, and design.
