Current 3D printers employ either plastic or metal only, and the conventional method to coat 3D plastic structures with metal is not environment-friendly and yields poor results. Now, scientists from Waseda University , Japan, have developed a metal-plastic hybrid 3D printing technique that produces plastic structures with a highly adhesive metal coating on desired areas. This approach extends the use of 3D printers to 3D electronics for future robotics and Internet-of-Things applications.

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Three-dimensional (3D) printing technology has evolved tremendously over the last decade to the point where it is now viable for mass production in industrial settings. Also known as “additive manufacturing,” 3D printing allows one to create arbitrarily complex 3D objects directly from their raw materials. In fused filament fabrication, the most popular 3D printing process, a plastic or metal is melted and extruded through a small nozzle by a printer head and then […]

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