Collaborate Disseminate
When you think about additive manufacturing, thoughts naturally turn to that hot-glue squirting CNC machine sitting on your bench and squeezing whatever plastic doodad you need. But 3D printing isn’t …read more Continue reading Electrospinning Artificial Heart Valves
Researchers have developed a biodegradable patch engineered from human cells that could one day be used to correct infant congenital heart defects, limiting the need for multiple invasive surgeries and outlasting current non-living, non-degradable patc… Continue reading Biodegradable patch developed to fix congenital heart defects in infants
Researchers have developed a biodegradable patch engineered from human cells that could one day be used to correct infant congenital heart defects, limiting the need for multiple invasive surgeries and outlasting current non-living, non-degradable patc… Continue reading Biodegradable patch developed to fix congenital heart defects in infants
That ancient mariner was onto something when he said “water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink” – the vast majority of water on Earth is undrinkable. Desalination could be a vital technology to meet the world’s drinking water needs, and now Korea… Continue reading Mixed up membrane desalinates water with 99.99 percent efficiency
We are all used to desktop 3D printers that extrude molten plastic in layers to build up finished items. A pair of researchers at the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, [Michael Rivera] and [Scott Hudson], have added another capability to their printer: electrospinning of textiles.
Electrospinning is a …read more
Electrospinning is the process of dispensing a polymer solution from a nozzle, then applying a very high voltage potential between the nozzle and a collector screen. The result is a very, very fine fiber that is stretched and elongated down to nanometers. Why would anyone want this? These fibers make great filters because of their large surface area. Electrospinning has been cited as an enabling technology for the future of textiles. The reality, though, is that no one really knows how electrospinning is going to become a standard industrial process because it’s so rare. Not many labs are researching electrospinning, …read more
Continue reading Hackaday Prize Entry: Open Source Electrospinning
Even in this age of wearable technology, the actual fabric in our t-shirts and clothes may still be the most high-tech product we wear. From the genetically engineered cotton seed, though an autonomous machine world, this product is manufactured in one of the world’s largest automation bubbles. Self-driving cotton pickers harvest and preprocess the cotton. More machines blend the raw material, comb it, twist and spin it into yarn, and finally, a weaving machine outputs sheets of spotless cotton jersey. The degree of automation could not be higher. Except for the laboratories, where seeds, cotton fibers, and yarns are tested …read more
Continue reading Filling The Automation Gap In Garment Manufacturing
The once successful Kickstarter and National Science Foundation (NSF) research grant winner Electroloom is saying “Thanks and Farewell” to its backers, supporters, and sponsors. The startup ran out of funding while developing printer-like machine that uses electrospinning to automatedly produce ready-to-use garments.
Electroloom has been an ambitious project to explore if electrospinning could be made viable for garment manufacturing. The process that uses a high voltage to transform a resinous liquid into non-woven fabric was originally invented for textile fabrication, although its low throughput has always been a limiting factor. The method was mostly used in laboratory and medical applications. …read more
