Piecewise 3D Printing of Crystallographic Data for Post-Printing Construction

Abstract

A method of 3D printing complex or challenging structures by breaking them into parts with connectors, printing each part separately, and then assembling the structure post-printing has been developed. This has advantages such as multicoloured printing, framework optimization and reduction, print time reduction, and can be used to bypass print tray size limits. This method is particularly applicable to extended structures such as coordination polymers, metal-organic frameworks, and hydrogen bonding networks, but examples where it can be used to simplify the printing of small molecules are also shown.

A 3D Printer in the lab: not only a toy

“…Scanning for literature at this point will return plenty of 3D printable objects: molecular structural models, [4,5,6] , corals, [7] crystal structures and 3D printed chips for obtaining crystals, [8] which are valuable models for teaching, and give the student a physical model of chemical structures, etc (Figure 2b). There are, for example, instructions on how to convert crystallographic data to 3D printable models (Figure 2c) [9][10][11][12] or even how to convert NMR spectra to 3D prints (Figure 2d). [13,14] 3D printing and NMR do not end here: you can print sample tubes for solid-state NMR, [15] whole NMR magnets, [16] and even scaffolds for making NMR coils.…”

A 3D Printer in the lab: not only a toy

“…Scanning for literature at this point will return plenty of 3D printable objects: molecular models, [4,5,6] crystal structures, which are valuable models for teaching, and give the student a physical model of chemical structures, etc (Figure 2b). There are, for example, instructions on how to convert crystallographic data to 3D printable models (Figure 2c) [7][8][9][10] or even how to convert NMR spectra to 3D prints (Figure 2d). [11,12] 3D printing and NMR do not end here: you can print sample tubes for solid-state NMR [13], or even whole NMR magnets.…”

“…b) Chemistry model sets which can be also downloaded and printed from [4]. c) X-ray structures [10] and d) NMR 2D spectra can also be converted to 3D printable models. [11] cial laboratory plastic parts.…”