Printing in Gel Could Move 3D Printing From Prototypes to Production
Designer and TED Fellow Schendy Kernizan argues that printing objects inside a reusable gel could help move 3D printing beyond prototypes and into more efficient production. The gel supports shapes as they are made, reducing the need for disposable support structures and allowing forms that gravity would otherwise make difficult to print. Kernizan sees the method as a way to make customized products, including medical devices, more practical and to give manufacturers greater freedom to test new designs.
Support structures are the hidden cost of many 3D prints
Schendy Kernizan sees a gap between what 3D printing can make and what it can manufacture efficiently. The technology has taken off over roughly 30 years, he says, and was presented as a possible replacement for traditional manufacturing. But a print needs a surface to build from, and gravity limits the shapes that can hold together as they are made.
Complex forms often require support structures that must later be removed, leaving manual cleanup and discarded material. Kernizan describes 3D printing as a system that is good for prototyping but has not yet built a bridge from prototyping to production.
Printing in gel supports shapes as they are made
Rapid Liquid Print’s approach is to print inside a gel that holds the emerging shape in place. Kernizan compares the process to drawing in space: instead of moving a pencil through air and watching the line fall, the machine deposits material into a supporting medium.
The design begins on a computer and is sent to the printer. As the machine moves through the tank, it extrudes material along the programmed path, adjusting its speed and position to draw the intended geometry. Kernizan likens that motion to moving an arm with a pencil: the machine determines where to draw inside the tank and how quickly or slowly to move.
The gel is mostly water transformed into a gelatin, he says, with a consistency like hand sanitizer. It can move, but still has structure. Its viscosity is strong enough to keep the extruded material from pooling at the bottom. When printing is done, the part stays in the gel until it fully cures.
You’re literally doing calligraphy in space.
Kernizan says the process can make parts faster and allows colors to be customized, blended, or formed into gradients. The gel also changes what happens after a print. Unlike a mold made for one design and then set aside or discarded when the design changes, the gel can be reused. The part is extracted, rinsed with water, and the gel is used again. Kernizan presents that reuse, alongside avoiding discarded supports, as a more sustainable way to make objects.
A better fit can matter more than a standard size
The process first drew interest from an MIT research group working on prosthetics and orthotics. That led Kernizan and his colleagues to speak with clinicians about a practical problem: patients are often offered small, medium, or large because standard sizes are faster and easier to provide. But a standard size may not fit the person wearing it.
Clinicians saw potential in customization, Kernizan says, but lacked an easy way to produce it. His team began printing and testing parts for them. He recalls clinicians showing the team pictures of a patient trying a piece printed in their garage. The patient described it as the best fit they had experienced and said it felt good on their body.
For Kernizan, the significance was the turnaround as well as the fit: a patient could be scanned in the morning, a part printed that afternoon, and a customized solution ready the next day. That sequence is the practical example he offers for making customization more accessible: a specific person’s needs inform the design, and the team can produce a part on a short timeline rather than relying on a standard size.
The potential is not limited to medical devices. Kernizan says people would like products customized to their bodies and needs. He also points to the feel of an object: even a phone case, he observes, usually has some flexibility and give, which can feel more relatable to touch than a hard surface.
Making mass customization more accessible to people is how I see the future.
The wider ambition is to let industries test different ways of making
Kernizan names toys, fashion, cars, rockets, and consumer goods as industries that could benefit from the technique. He also broadens the possibility beyond printing finished products: the ways people grow things or make things, he says, may change.
His own example is space. He imagines creating new things that could inspire further travel or habitats in space, and exploring solutions that may not have been considered before. The point is not that the same object or process fits every industry, but that people in different fields are interested in using the tool to push their work forward and try things they could not do before. For Kernizan, that willingness to experiment is part of the manufacturing future: customization for individual needs, and new forms shaped by the freedom to draw inside a supporting medium.