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In the lab of the WVU Microgravity Research Team, undergraduate engineering student Renee Garneau works on a 3D printer that’s custom-designed for operation in little to no gravity. By enabling low-waste manufacture of equipment that can purify water and provide UV shielding, Garneau’s work could enable extended missions into deep space.
(WVU Photo/Brian Persinger)

West Virginia University faculty and students have been researching the effects of 3D printing in a zero-gravity environment. This research will support long-term exploration on spaceships or Mars.

Rather than relying on Earth to transport these items, extended missions in space will require the production of critical materials and gear onsite. Microgravity Research Team Members believe that 3D printing will make this possible.

The team’s recent experiments focused on how a weightless microgravity environment affects 3D printing using titania foam, a material with potential applications ranging from UV blocking to water purification. ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces released their findings.

“A spacecraft can’t carry infinite resources, so you have to maintain and recycle what you have and 3D printing enables that,” said lead author Jacob Cordonier, a doctoral student in mechanical and aerospace engineering at the WVU Benjamin M. Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources. “You can print only what you need, reducing waste. Our study examined whether a 3D foam made of titanium dioxide could be used to protect against UV radiation in outerspace and purify the water. 

“The research also allows us to see gravity’s role in how the foam comes out of the 3D printer nozzle and spreads onto a substrate. We’ve seen differences in the filament shape when printed in microgravity compared to Earth gravity. And by changing additional variables in the printing process, such as writing speed and extrusion pressure, we’re able to paint a clearer image of how all these parameters interact to tune the shape of the filament.”

Cordonier’s co-authors include current and former undergraduate students Kyleigh Anderson, Ronan Butts, Ross O’Hara, Renee Garneau and Nathanael Wimer. John Kuhlman (professor emeritus) and Konstantinos Sierros, an associate professor and the associate chair for Research in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering also contributed to this paper. 

Sierros has overseen the Microgravity Research Team’s titania foam studies since 2016. The WVU labs are now where the work is done, but it was originally carried out on a Boeing. The students used the weightlessness to print lines on glass slides.

“Transporting even a kilogram of material in space is expensive and storage is limited, so we’re looking into what is called ‘in-situ resource utilization,’” Sierros said. “We know the moon contains deposits of minerals very similar to the titanium dioxide used to make our foam, so the idea is you don’t have to transport equipment from here to space because we can mine those resources on the moon and print the equipment that’s necessary for a mission.”

Shields against ultraviolet radiation are necessary equipment. This light is a danger to astronauts, electronics, and other assets in space.

“On Earth, our atmosphere blocks a significant part of UV light — though not all of it, which is why we get sunburned,” Cordonier said. “In space or on the moon, there’s nothing to mitigate it besides your spacesuit or whatever coating is on your spacecraft or habitat.”

To measure titania foam’s effectiveness at blocking UV waves, “we would shine light ranging from the ultraviolet wavelengths up to the visible light spectrum,” he explained. “We measured how much light was getting through the titania foam film we had printed, how much got reflected back and how much was absorbed by the sample. The film blocked almost all UV light that hit the sample, and only a small amount of visible light got through. Even at only 200 microns thick, our material is effective at blocking UV radiation.”

Cordonier added that the foam also exhibited photocatalytic characteristics, which is to say that it can use sunlight to promote chemical reactions. This can help purify water or air.

Team member Butts, an undergraduate from Wheeling, led experiments in contact angle testing to analyze how changes in temperature affected the foam’s surface energy. Butts called the research “a different type of challenge that students don’t always get to experience,” and said he especially valued the engagement component. 

“Our team gets to do a lot of outreach with young students like the Scouts through the Merit Badge University at WVU. We get to show them what we do here as a way to say, ‘Hey, this is something you could do, too,’” Butts said.

According to Sierros, “We’re trying to integrate research into student careers at an early point. We have a student subgroup that’s purely hardware and they make the 3D printers. Students are leading the materials development, automation and data analysis. These undergraduates, who are doing this research with NASA’s support and two highly competitive NASA grants, have taken part in the entire process. They have published peer-reviewed scientific articles and presented at conferences.”

Garneau, a student researcher from Winchester, Virginia, said her dream is for their 3D printer — custom designed to be compact and automated — to take a six-month trip to the International Space Station. This would allow for a more detailed monitoring of the print process than could be done during the freefalls.

“This was an amazing experience,” Garneau said. “It was the first time I participated in a research project that didn’t have predetermined results like what I have experienced in research-based classes. It was rewarding to analyze data and reach conclusions without predetermined expectations.

“Our approach can help extend space exploration, allowing astronauts to use resources they already have available to them without necessitating a resupply mission.”

-WVU-

mm/10/30/23

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