MIT Team 3D Prints Low-Cost Nozzle Arrays for Layered Drug-Delivery Particles

• Researchers at MIT have shown that a complex class of microscopic nozzle, normally built only inside semiconductor cleanrooms, can be produced in a matter of hours using 3D printing. The devices, known as triaxial electrospray emitters, generate microscopic droplets made of three separate fluid layers, droplets that can harden into structured microparticles for uses ranging…

Researchers at MIT have shown that a complex class of microscopic nozzle, normally built only inside semiconductor cleanrooms, can be produced in a matter of hours using 3D printing. The devices, known as triaxial electrospray emitters, generate microscopic droplets made of three separate fluid layers, droplets that can harden into structured microparticles for uses ranging from time-release medicines to self-healing materials. The work was led by Bryan Ivan Quintanar-Abarca of the Technological Institute of Monterrey in Mexico, with Luis Fernando Velásquez-García, a principal research scientist in MIT’s Microsystems Technology Laboratories, as senior author. Their findings were published in the journal Virtual and Physical Prototyping. Triaxial electrospray emitters. Photo via MIT. How