Dissoluble Plastic?

It seems the dutch 3D printing company Ultimaker has come out with a new way of printing complex structures. The company has developed their new printer with dual extrusion and the ability to hot swap extruders. In the past, the biggest problem with 3D printers was that there was no good way to print objects with complex overhangs. The way that 3D printers is by heating up plastics or other filaments and precisely extrude them similar to how inkjet printers work.


In this photo, there are white sections that are used to fill in all of the large gaps. This white material is known as PVA which stand for Polyvinyl alcohol. This support material is groundbreaking for the 3D printing community because this polymer is water soluble. This means that creators are able to create complex 1-peice moving designs that can be printed with great amounts of precision. Also, this material does not require the creator to disassemble the shape because all support material is dissolved in water. The image on the right is the same shape when the PVA is dissolved.

The printer works by using two hot ends that are able to have two totally different plastics going through them. The software on the printer manages timings between how cool the filament needs to be to have the next layer printed.