Technical Progress and Industrialization Prospect of 3D Liquid Metal Printing

Abstract

3D printing technology, especially for the low melting point alloy inks, represents the future development trend of advanced manufacturing technology. It is one of the most important opportunities to promote the transformation and upgrading of China’s manufacturing sector and achieve its change from "world’s factory" to "manufacturing power" . This article is dedicated to sketch the current research status of 3D printing technology especially with low melting point alloys. In addition, it interprets the development of global 3D printing industry.Furthermore, a comprehensive analysis of 3D printing industry facing China is elaborated, such as the current situation, opportunities and challenges. Particularly, the article pointed out that, the currently available 3D printings are generally restricted to a single target, either metal or non-metal components, let alone device or biological organ with functions. Most of the typical 3D printing still cannot simultaneously deal with the metal, nonmetal and biological inks together due to their huge difference in many important physical or chemical properties such as melting points, adhesion effect and compatible printability etc. between each other. Introduction of the newly emerging liquid metal 3D printing will reshape the current category of the additive manufacture research and development. Finally, the summary and prospect of liquid metal 3D printing technology is given.