Undergraduate Research

Syringe-Pump 3D Printer for Aluminum-Water Reaction Structures

Designed and built a custom syringe-pump 3D printer to manufacture water-soluble polymer structures loaded with oxide-free aluminum nanoparticles for hydrogen-generation research.

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3D PrintingCADResearch

Highlights

Researched tuning aluminum-water reactions to generate hydrogen on demand
Designed a novel printer architecture with a moving X/Y bed to minimize extruder motion, plus a syringe-pump extruder for viscous feedstock
Combined existing 3D-print architectures with custom mechanisms, from sketch to CAD to a working printer

Finished syringe-pump 3D printer — Completed syringe-pump 3D printer

Hand-drawn exploded sketch of the printer — Early design sketches

Labeled CAD model of the printer — Labeled CAD showing the X/Y bed, Z-axis, and syringe pump

Side view of the assembled printer — Assembled printer, side view