In Texas, researchers at the Fiber and Biopolymer Research Institute at Texas Tech University in Lubbock have developed a process to convert cotton waste into a cellulose gel for 3D printing and other casting applications. The process could lower the costs of 3D printing and make it accessible to new applications.
Noureddine Abidi, managing director of FBRI says the process starts with gin byproducts—the cotton fibers not used for textiles—or recycled cotton. Solvents are used to create a gel with long glucose chains that can be printed or molded. “I’m a chemist, and so I look at how can I take one product and chemically make something else,” Abidi says. “Cellulose is a lot of glucose units stuck together. The challenge is in how to separate them, but not break them.”
Other materials can be added to produce composites with useful properties for applications such as construction and wound care.