Harnessing the transformative potential of additive manufacturing
Additive manufacturing has revolutionised various industries by enabling the creation of complex, customised structures with unprecedented precision and efficiency. This transformative technology has significantly impacted our lives, particularly in the energy and healthcare sectors, where 3D printing innovations have enabled us to break new ground and enhance technological capabilities.
Dr Esther Garcia-Tunon, a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow and Senior Lecturer in Materials Science and Engineering and her team are at the forefront of fundamental and applied research that can enable further innovations. The primary aim of this research is to create new formulations that combine high-quality material properties with the ability to form versatile, complex structures that can be applied in 3D printing.
By integrating both fundamental and applied research at the intersection of materials discovery and advanced manufacturing, the goal is to gain a comprehensive understanding of additive manufacturing’s capabilities. This knowledge can then be leveraged to forge strong, impactful collaborations between academic institutions and industry partners to drive further solutions to some of the worlds grandest challenges.
Real world applications
Our long-term aim is to apply these advancements in energy and health sectors. Specific applications in energy include hydrogen generation, energy storage and other relevant areas such as gas filtration and water purification. We are working with materials chemists in the Materials Innovation Factory on the processing of porous organic cages, sulphur-derived polymers, and modified strontium titanate.
In health, we are currently working on THz devices with researchers at NTHU. We are also carrying out fundamental research on bioprinting with the long-term aim of creating complex structures and interfaces for cartilage repair.
Watch the video to discover how our pioneering research at the University of Liverpool is bridging the gap between materials chemistry and engineering to revolutionise additive manufacturing
About Dr Esther García-Tuñón
Esther, an UKRI Future Leaders Fellow and Senior Lecturer, joined the Materials Innovation Factory and the School of Engineering in February 2017. Prior to this she was a research associate in the Centre for Advanced Structural Ceramics (CASC) at Imperial College London, where she arrived in October 2011 with a Barrie de la Maza fellowship. She holds a degree in Chemical Engineering and a PhD in Materials Science from the Universidad de Santiago de Compostela in Spain.
Esther’s research in processing and manufacturing is at the interface between Engineering, Chemistry and Materials Science. Her primary research fields are formulation and rheology of complex fluids, colloidal processing of ceramics and other functional materials, and additive manufacturing.. Her work focuses on developing flexible, water-based, and robust processing approaches of advanced materials to create objects with controlled architecture at multiple scales (from cm to nm). She has established a new complex fluids group at the University of Liverpool and a new bespoke laboratory with state-of-the-art equipment for all the stages in the processing of advanced materials, formulation, complex fluids characterisation, printing and post-processing. Her fellowship has supported new capital equipment to study complex fluids combining bulk measurements with direct visualisation.