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Modern Origami Method Creates Glass Shapes by Folding
Intricate glass designs can be made with origami and cutting techniques, which can be combined with 3D printing to make more complex shapes [acs.org]:
The ancient art of origami is well known for transforming sheets of paper and other foldable materials into complex 3D shapes. But now, chemical engineers have extended the centuries-old practice to produce intricate shapes made of glass or other hard materials. Their thoroughly modern method, which can be combined with 3D printing, could have applications ranging from sculpture to catalysis and beyond.
[...] Typically, glass and ceramics are shaped in a mold or are 3D printed in the desired final structure. But a mold can't produce a complicated shape, Xie says. And although 3D printing can do so, it's slow, and an object can be flimsy and need extra support while it's being made. In addition, the printed item usually has a layered texture that might not be the ideal appearance. The team set out to see if they could overcome these shortcomings.
Yang Xu, a graduate student who works in Xie's lab at Zhejiang University, devised a technique in which she mixed nanoparticles of silica — the main ingredient for making glass — into a liquid containing several compounds. Curing the mixture with ultraviolet light produced a cross-linked polycaprolactone polymer with tiny beads of silica suspended in it, like raisins in raisin bread.
[...] Next, Xu cut, folded, twisted and pulled on sheets of this translucent polymer composite, which has mechanical properties similar to paper, to make a crane, a feather, a lacy vase and a sphere made of intertwined ribbons, among other objects. If she did this at room temperature, the composite retained its new shape fairly well throughout the remaining production steps. Xu discovered that's because the folding and stretching process irreversibly disrupts the interface between some of the silica particles and the polymer matrix. But if it's critical to fully retain the new shape during the subsequent steps, Xu found that the composite must be heated at about 265 F when it is folded and stretched. That permanently rearranges the links between the polymer chains, firmly fixing the new shape in place.
[...] In her latest work, Xu is extending the method beyond glass to ceramics, replacing the silica with substances such as zirconium dioxide and titanium dioxide. Whereas glass is brittle and inert, these compounds open up the possibility of producing "functional" objects, such as materials that are less fragile than glass or that have catalytic properties.
The group is also experimenting with a combination of kirigami and 3D printing to make even more complex shapes. "When you fold a piece of paper, the level of complexity is somewhat limited, and 3D printing is kind of slow," Xie says. "So we wanted to see if we could combine these two techniques to take advantage of their attractive attributes. That would give us the freedom to make almost any shaped part."
