Some things sublimate, turn from a solid directly to a gas. Camphor crystals are among these things.

I think shapes of greater intricacy could be printed with a sublimating material. For example I read that turnable threaded nuts and bolts are considered an unmet goal of 3D printing. Camphor, or other sublimating material printing could print those objects. Similarly large unsupported horizontal planes could be printed with "evaporating" support.

Or think of this, a 4800 DPI inkjet printer that prints camphor and metal, with layers, this could be applied to printing 3D batteries with very high energy density of arbitrary size, on location. with 4800 DPI 3d printing you could print conductors with very tiny, highly specialized magnetic fields.

Electrophoretic drug delivery is where a battery next to some medical goop does iontophoresis, causing a much improved drug delivery profile. printed batteries wiould benefit that existing technology. It is even possible to imagine doing electrophoretic gene therapy with a printed battery.
-- beanangel, Feb 10 2017

Hmm. I thought this was going to be a material to replace wax in lost wax casting - which would have been a good idea.

Is it possible to print metal and camphor side by side? Isn't heat involved in the metal part, thereby vaporising the camphor?
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 10 2017


I suspect that the unmet goal is to 3D-print a bolt with a nut already threaded on it, which when removed from the printer the nut can be rotated along the length of the bolt. I know of no reason why individual nuts and bolt cannot already be 3D printed.
-- Vernon, Feb 11 2017



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