RIVERSIDE, Calif. (http://www.ucr.edu) -- Researchers at the University of California, Riverside have found parts produced by some commercial 3D printers are toxic to certain fish embryos. Their results have raised questions about how to dispose of parts and waste materials from 3D printers.
"These 3D printers are like tiny factories in a box," said William Grover, an assistant professor of bioengineering in the Bourns College of Engineering. "We regulate factories. We would never bring one into our home. Yet, we are starting to bring these 3D printers into our homes like they are toasters."
The researchers studied two common types of 3D printers: one that melts plastic to build a part, and another that uses light to turn a liquid into a solid part. They found that parts from both types of printers were measurably toxic to zebrafish embryos, and parts from the liquid-based printer were the most toxic. They also developed a simple post-printing treatment - exposure to ultraviolet light - that reduced the toxicity of parts from the liquid-based printer.
The research comes as the popularity of 3D printers is soaring. The value of the 3D printing market grew from $288 million in 2012 to $2.5 billion in 2013 and is projected to grow to $16.2 billion by 2018, according to a report by Canalys.
And, as the price of 3D printers continues to drop -printers that use melted plastic are currently available for as little as $200, and the liquid-based printer used in this study can be bought for less than $3,000 - they are moving beyond industry and research labs to homes and small businesses.
The research started about a year ago when Grover bought a 3D printer for his lab. Shirin Mesbah Oskui, a graduate student in Grover's lab, is developing tools for studying zebrafish embryos, and she wanted to use the printer in her research. However, her plans were thwarted when she noticed that zebrafish embryos die after exposure to parts from the 3D printer.
From those observations, Oskui and Grover then decided to test the toxicity of printed objects from the two types of 3D printers. Their results are described in a paper, "Assessing and Reducing the Toxicity of 3D-Printed Parts," which was published online today (Nov. 4) in the journal Environmental Science and Technology Letters. Joining Oskui and Grover as authors on the paper are Jay Gan and Daniel Schlenk, professors in the Department of Environmental Sciences; Graciel Diamante, a graduate student working with Schlenk; and Chunyang Liao and Wei Shi, both of whom work in Gan's lab.
Oskui used two commercial 3D printers in their study, a Dimension Elite printer made by Stratasys (which uses melted plastic to build parts) and a Form 1+ stereolithography printer made by Formlabs (which uses liquid resin to make parts).
She used each printer to create disc-shaped parts, about an inch in diameter. Then she placed the discs in petri dishes with zebrafish embryos and studied survival rates and hatch rates and monitored for developmental abnormalities.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-11/uoc--sss110415.php
