Project II. idea

For what I am interested in, is - ICE.

My initial idea is to use some liquid materials for example water, as the most basic printer material, through the combination with other chemicals that will print out by nozzle, so whatever liquid (water) can be rapidly froze with a solid shape. Of course, the frozen ice sculpture could be any kind of shapes which are controlled by the electronic control system of 3d printer itself.

Materials

I am pretty like to find out some interesting materials that are probably very special to be used in 3d print, I have done some researches on malt sugar and wax, but I could not create a new idea which could get rid of normal 3d print style. These two materials are hard for me to make a development. Then, I came out an idea with water which is base on the researches that I did in the first project. Water is a very usual material that is easy to use. Reducing the temperature of water could change it into ice state, so it is possible to change the shape of water. According to my research on how to reduce the temperature of water rapidly, the liquid nitrogen is the best choice to achieve this.

Liquid nitrogen is more safety, it is non-toxic and non-corrosive material, and also it is easy to store in common material containers but must be vacuumed.

How does my ideal 3d printer work?

To design this liquid nitrogen printer, hopefully I am gonna use arduino to control the whole working system that the nozzle could move along X, Y and Z axis. Normally, the nozzle will put under water so it must be waterproofed, and it must effectively separate liquid nitrogen and water.  

Nozzle – the inside diameter of nozzle should be as small as it can. It is aim to keep it safe, but also to prevent if big nozzle may freeze more area that lead to the inaccurate output of my 3d printer.   

I know to create a completely ice sculpture is difficult because normally it will melt a bit when water surround, so in order to prevent this defect, I am thinking to update the nozzle forever stay under water, and randomly comes out with a number of liquid nitrogen. The whole water contain will show a beautiful view with some frozen look. 

getting into final model

For final modeling, i've got a mask mode which should be easy to put my materials on. tried to put cotton and PVA liquid as layer by layer as 'sandwich'. I will color it a bit but still want to keep the raw material would be seen in final model, so hopefully can do a kind of weird mask but keep it looks really simple.

The purpose of cotton mask is to combine both properties of cotton and PVA, hopefully could make a mask strong enough to wear, but the important thing is the mask can suit everyone by their different face of different angle. So use the PVA property which is water-soluble, then spry a little bit water on the mask, then use the new property, which is PVA+cotton, a toughness style cotton to fix different angle of face, so that makes people feel more comfortable when wearing masks.

images of final model- cotton mask:

idea with cotton

By looking for many kinds of thing, I think if I could mix PVA with cotton could be interesting for me, and I figured out that cotton do have these kind of threadlike which different to fabric, if I could mixed and make it stronger I would be very happy to see the property.

So I tried to adapt different concentration of liquid to see any differences or when soak cotton in it. Actually I found if get a high concentration PVA liquid may made the cotton more stronger.

When testing on different concentration, the PVA piece in the picture was appeared casually that because I was too lazy to pour it out, it's already became a whole piece which absolutely bring me ideas. If I could make a mask by cotton and PVA.

.............

Got two kinds of 100% pure cotton materials, but I think I should use the left one which is the original cotton for my mask project. Because when put them in liquid and dry after, the material on the right goes so hard which difficult to play around with different shape, for my mask project, I still wanna keep the surface looks soft and comfortable.

For more experiments to mix with more other materials try to get ideas

try to figure out how does their properties change, or what will appear(if any new thing or interesting thing happen).

This time, I found some interesting materials to mix for example wax, dishwasher, salt. wax is not that easy to mix with PVA, the first thing I dissolve PVA to be liquid and use the wax and pour into PVA liquid when a candle is burning.It's difficult to took pictures when mixing the two materials but still can get a short time which could see their mixable situation. 

the interesting one which is PVA liquid mix with salt. the mixed liquid became dusty and the PVA stuff comes together. its difficult for me to describe what was happening.

For the dishwasher one, which is the first of my ideas, I mix PVA liquid with some kitchen powder and few dishwasher, later on, the thing became a kind of new thing which could say a kind of solid dishwasher.looks more like jelly, and touch it feels pretty soft. I try to use the new thing to wash, still can get foam. This it the first thing which I really want to do, before talk to tutor I didn't know the thing was already have. so I need to figure out some new thing to focus on. 

 

Some experiments by playing around with small pieces of Polyvinyl Alcohol

As usual PVA is a water-soluble material, so my first simple test was drop a few drops of water on PVA to see how it gonna change. Actually the PVA piece needs some kind of high temperature water to dissolve it more faster. However, if water is not enough just like my test, the solution will become solid somehow later.

The second I burn it and I found it burnning phenomenon just like paper, that's interesting. When finish, it became a hard thing which like a little stone.

When put it on stove to heat, a smelly smoke came out, the material getting really soft and sticky, could change shape super easy same as plasticine, but Im pretty like to describe it as chewing gum which got the same feeling.

Also, the PVA is easy to be colored.  

 

Research on PVA properties and some applications for common uses

·         Paper adhesive with boric acid in spiral tube winding and solid board production

·         Thickener, modifier, in polyvinyl acetate glues

·         Textile sizing agent

·         Paper coatings, release liner,

·         As a water-soluble film useful for packaging. An example is the envelope containing laundry detergent in "liqui-tabs".

·         Feminine hygiene and adult incontinence products as a biodegradable plastic backing sheet.

·         Carbon dioxide barrier in polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles

·         As a film used in the water transfer printing process

·         As a form release because materials such as epoxy do not stick to it

·         Movie practical effect and children's play putty or slime when combined with borax

·         Used in eye drops (such as artificial tears to treat dry eyes) and hard contact lens solution as a lubricant

·         PVA fiber, as reinforcement in concrete

·         Raw material to polyvinyl nitrate (PVN). an ester of nitric acid and polyvinyl alcohol.

·         As a surfactant for the formation of polymer encapsulated nanobeads

·         Used in protective chemical-resistant gloves

·         Used as a fixative for specimen collection, especially stool samples

·         When doped with iodine, PVA can be used to polarize light

·         As an embolization agent in medical procedures

·         Carotid phantoms for use as synthetic vessels in Doppler flow testing

·         Used in 3D printing as support structure that can then be dissolved away.