Engineers Devise Method to 3D Print Martian Dust Structures

Space travelers looking to colonize extraterrestrial worlds may use knowledge gleaned from research recently published by a team of engineers at Northwestern University that demonstrates a new method to 3D print structures using faux Martian and Lunar dust.

Using NASA-approved material that simulates the particle shapes, sizes, and compositions of dust from Mars and Earth’s moon, Ramille Shah, assistant professor of materials science and engineering Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering and her Tissue Engineering and Additive Manufacturing (TEAM) Laboratory created Mars and Lunar dust-specific 3D paints that can be used to print flexible, tough structures.

“For places like other planets and moons, where resources are limited, people would need to use what is available on that planet in order to live,” said Shah, who also teaches surgery at the institution’s Fineberg School of Medicine, in an April 12 university press release. “Our 3D paints really open up the ability to print really functional or structural objects to make habitats beyond Earth.”

Shah and the research team, whose findings were published in the latest issue of Nature Scientific Reports, combined the dusts, simple solvents, and biopolymer into 3D paints that were extruded into structures that are 90% dust by weight.

Though Martian and Lunar dust are rigid micro-rocks, the 3D printed extraterrestrial dust results in a tough, but flexible material that can be cut, rolled, folded, or shaped.

“We even 3D-printed interlocking bricks, similar to Legos, that can be used as building blocks,” said Shah.

The professor is now working with David Durand, the James N. and Margie M. Krebs Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, to figure out ways to harden the 3D-printed structures in a furnace.

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