Dr. 4D printer (4D Printing programmable wood).
Researchers at ETH Zurich have developed a method for 4D printing programmable wood that can be reshaped when exposed to heat and humidity. The team used a cellulose nanocrystal hydrogel composite to create the wood-based material. They demonstrated that it could be programmed to fold into a predefined shape after 100 minutes at 100°C and 95% relative humidity. The researchers say the method could create “smart” wooden objects that adapt to their environment, including furniture, building materials, and biomedical devices.
Meri asked about 4D printing wood, “Is this 100% wood?
Concerns: are 3d and 4d printing materials biodegradable, earth-friendly, environmentally friendly, and safe for people during the use and production of items made by 3d and 4d printing? According to the University of California Irvine Facebook group, that student(s) must build something extra to help with the fume created during 3d printing. The fumes can be very bad for health as we inhale and surround ourselves in the fume during production and into the environment…air, and so on…which then rains into the land, wildlife, river, and ocean contributing to global warming and destruction of the planet to have an accumulation of stuff…for joy and happiness of people. It could be like secondhand smoking…what about other people on the planet, other animals, fish, and the entire earth?? Why should we all suffer needlessly for the joy of those who print excessively to have stuff”.
For this comment. We still don’t have a sufficient answer. 4D printing is still in the research stage. I am sure we will use 4D printing more often in the future.
Source: L. Zhao et al., “4D printing reconfigurable, deployable and mechanically tunable cellulose nanocrystal aerogel-elastomer composite,” Nature Communications, vol. 13, no. 1, Mar. 2022, doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-28602-w.
