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3-D Printing

Chemistry In Pictures

Chemistry in Pictures: 3-dimensional, 8-tentacle printing

by Manny I. Fox Morone
September 6, 2023

 

A tiny orange plastic octopus with a head about 4 millimeters wide sits on a white table. Its 8 tentacles are lay flat on the table and are distributed evenly around the head.
Credit: Lynn Stevens
A tiny orange plastic octopus with a head about 4 millimeters wide sits on a dark surface and fluoresces under ultraviolet light. Its 8 tentacles are lay flat on the table and are distributed evenly around the head.
Credit: Lynn Stevens

To test a 3D printing material she’s been working on, Lynn Stevens made this octopus with bulbous head and tentacles thinner than 1 mm. Stevens, a PhD student in Zachariah Page’s lab at the University of Texas at Austin, researches methods for printing objects useful in biotech, medicine, and manufacturing. In this case, the octopus is made of a hydrogel resin containing mostly cell media, a material that one day could support living cells in therapeutic implants. Because Stevens hardened the hydrogel using a fluorescent, light-triggered catalyst, the little guy glows under ultraviolet light (bottom).

Submitted by Lynn Stevens

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