Liquid-Solid Co-Printing of Multi-Material 3D Fluidic Devices via Material Jetting

Multi-material material jetting additive manufacturing processes deposit micro-scale droplets of different model and support materials to build three-dimensional (3D) parts layer by layer. Recent efforts have demonstrated that liquids can act as support materials, which can be easily purged from micro/milli-channels, and as working fluids, which permanently remain in a structure, yet the lack of a detailed understanding of the print process and mechanism has limited widespread applications of liquid printing. In this study, an "all in one go" multi-material print process in which non photo-curable and photo-curable liquid droplets are simultaneous deposited, is extensively characterized. We envision the liquid–solid co-printing process as a key new capability in additive manufacturing to enable simple and rapid fabrication of 3D, integrated print-in-place multi-material fluidic circuits and hydraulic structures with applications including micro/mesofluidic circuits, electrochemical transistors, lab-on-a-chip devices with in-situ reagent deposition, and robotics. We note the ease in which this technique allows fabrication of micro/mesofluidic devices. 3D printing enables those with no prior soft lithography and micro-fabrication experience to produce micro/mesofluidic devices thus making the field more accessible.