News via Deezen
Designer and researcher Neri Oxman and her Mediated Matter group atMIT Media Lab have developed a technique for 3D-printing molten glass, meaning that transparent glass objects can be printed for the first time (+ movie).
The group, based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, built an additive manufacturing machine that extrudes molten glass – a process the team believes could be used to create architectural components and even entire building facades.
The project, titled G3DP, represents “a first of its kind optically transparent glass printing process,” the group said. Oxman’s team have used the technique to produce a range of vases and bowls, but Oxman said that the new glass-printing technology could be used as an architectural scale. “In this project, we wanted to explore the possibility of creating that are at once structurally sound, environmentally informed and have the potential to contain and flow media through them,” she said, adding that glass could one day be printed to create “a single transparent building skin.”
The G3DP printer features two insulated chambers, one above the other. The upper chamber serves as kiln, keeping molten glass heated to 1,900 degrees Fahrenheit (1,000 degrees Celsius). This acts as the print cartridge, moving laterally to deposit a continuous stream of liquid glass into the lower chamber via a nozzle made from alumina zirconia-silica – a chemical compound that is resistant to heat.