On Friday 11/22 NPR’s Science Friday aired an episode on dying coral reefs and the restoration efforts underway. One technique involves 3D printing coral reefs to help rebuild them. The reef hobbyist networks were discussed as a grassroots level resource that may help. The scientists on the show said that the actual reef dives to restore the reef are the time consuming and limiting factor. This and “Chasing Coral” on Netflix are two recent interesting pieces created to help increase awareness of the dying reef habitat. But this was the first I’ve heard of printing the actual reef!
Are you asking about glow int eh dark or UV reactive?
3dinsider.com
THANKS!Are you asking about glow int eh dark or UV reactive?
For glow in the dark, it may depend on what makes it glow. Here's what 3D Insider has to say about it
Glow in the Dark Filaments
You might have graduated from standard PLA and ABS filaments, played around with conductive filaments, made a mess with flexible filaments, and made incredible prints with metallic or wood filaments. But perhaps you are looking
"low in the dark filaments are basically standard ABS or PLA filaments infused with a phosphorescent material. The most commonly used of these phosphorescent materials is strontium aluminate, although zinc sulfide and calcium sulfide are still used in some capacity. In a way, they are made in a very similar way to other composite materials such as carbon fiber filaments, magnetic filaments, and wood filaments... "
strontium aluminate is supposedly non-toxic,
zinc sulfide may be toxic if the plastic it is contained in begins to break down.
calcium sulfide may also be toxic, Some information i was able to uncover using google is that it tend to decompose when it comes in contact with water.
I suppose for any of these to be an issue, it would require the plastic to first degrade and release the compounds in the filament.
With that said, it seems like a filiment I wouldn't use in the reef tank.
ZYLtech PLA - black , transluscent
Hobby King PLA - Orange, Coffee (which is a more dark purple/maroon color)
Super thin pieces definitely degrade over time, but I've printed myself some little PVC weirs of PLA almost a year ago and those are still going strong with no sign of degradation.
I've printed: mushroom boxes, custom weirs, custom powerhead covers (they broke pretty fast because of the constant force pulling them), frag racks (hanging & for the floor), carbon holders, a holder to keep my auto feeder on the side of a bucket and some other random nonsense.
I even tried to print hermit crab shells (hobby king coffee color) with skulls at one point, but they floated which obviously wasn't super helpful in the end, but they looked pretty cool! Might try that again one day and just weigh them down for a bit
We are experimenting with that right now. With that said, the raw resin is pretty toxic when it comes to sea life, but certain resins when properly cured may not be.
that I have not considered - but now that you mentrion it, that makes sense. I would assume if you were going to mix resins you would need to mix simiar brands with similar chemical make ups?
