3D Printing in 2015

Spencer Lowell published an article called "3-D Printing Emerges From A Plastic Soup" in an August 2015 edition of Wired on page 32. The main idea is exactly as the title suggests and mentions, at the time, a new process of 3-D printing called Carbon3D. Instead of creating an object from the bottom up using plastic filament layers, a Carbon3D printer uses a 30-year-old technology called stereolithography. Stereolithography essentially utilizes a resign that hardens when exposed to UV light, which creates the object from the top to the bottom.

A Carbon3D printer focuses the UV light with a projector and can print up to 100 times faster than their makerbot counter-parts, according to the article. I found it interesting how someone came across this old process and applied it to new technology. It's also cool how chemistry is proving to be important to our futures. Makes me feel a bit better about my career choice. I'm sure my fellow chemmies feel the same.

I would like to know why I have never heard of this technology. If it is so much more efficient, why aren't more people and companies using it? I would also like to know more about the process such as what the resign is composed of. I would assume some kind of carbon hence the name Carbon3D. On the topic of 3D printing, researching the different 3D printing processes would be pretty interesting.

In my opinion, I believe this article would be slightly different if it were written today. I think it would be much more in depth because 3D printing has become more popular and people are more familiar with it.