A revolutionary 3-D printing technology that appears to be inspired by the movie "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" could allow ready-to-use products to be created as much as 100 times faster than through modern manufacturing methods.

The invention could lead to breakthroughs in healthcare and medicine, as well as in the automobile and aviation industries. The 3-D printing method was created by Silicon Valley startup, Carbon3D Inc.

The method, dubbed Continuous Liquid Interface Production (CLIP), manipulates light and oxygen to fuse objects within a liquid environment. It is the first 3-D printing process that employs tunable photochemistry instead of a layer-by-layer method. The technology works by projecting beams of light through an oxygen-permeable window into liquid resin. The beams of light and oxygen create controlled solidification of the resin. 

"By rethinking the whole approach to 3D printing, and the chemistry and physics behind the process, we have developed a new technology that can create parts radically faster than traditional technologies by essentially 'growing' them in a pool of liquid," said Joseph M. DeSimone, professor of chemistry at UNC-Chapel Hill and of chemical engineering at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 

The research team is now working to improve the method and find materials that could be compatible with the technology.

"In addition to using new materials, CLIP can allow us to make stronger objects with unique geometries that other techniques cannot achieve, such as cardiac stents personally tailored to meet the needs of a specific patient," DeSimone said. "Since CLIP facilitates 3D polymeric object fabrication in a matter of minutes instead of hours or days, it would not be impossible within coming years to enable personalized coronary stents, dental implants or prosthetics to be 3D printed on-demand in a medical setting."

The technology was described in a recent edition of the journal Science.

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