3D printing in materials science research: what labs print

In materials science research, 3D printing is mainly a fast way to make things that are slow or impossible to make otherwise: custom lab hardware, test specimens, lattices and other architected structures, and parts from new materials whose ink or powder the lab has engineered itself. A hobbyist’s FDM printer can realistically cover the first item and, with care, part of the second. The rest needs equipment or chemistry that does not exist at home.

This article sorts what labs print and why, using peer-reviewed papers and open-hardware journals, then spells out what a maker can and cannot replicate. It is explanatory, not a how-to for running a lab. Every claim about a study is limited to what its abstract reports, and no figure here comes from our own testing.

What labs print, and what a maker can try

Use in research	Typical process	Why labs do it	Maker can try it?
Custom fixtures and lab hardware	Desktop FFF/FDM	Cheap, fast iteration on one-off parts	Yes
Test specimens for mechanical testing	FFF, resin, powder bed	Specimens of exact geometry, printed in the settings being studied	Partly: you can print them; testing them properly is the hard part
Novel inks and composites	Direct ink writing (DIW)	Almost any material can be printed if the ink is engineered for the right flow behaviour	Partly: syringe extruders exist; ink development is the hard part
Architected materials (microlattices)	Projection microstereolithography	Lattices that are stiff, strong and light	No
Precious and reflective metals	Laser powder bed fusion	Complex metal geometries, jewelry	No (service only)
High-throughput design exploration	Printing plus automated testing	Many designs tested with fewer experiments	The idea transfers; the automation does not

Custom fixtures and lab equipment

The most common use is also the most accessible. A 2012 article in Science (Pearce) describes how a growing selection of laboratory equipment can be fabricated with open-source 3D printers at low cost, and a 2015 PLoS Biology piece (Baden et al.) frames 3D printing as a way to build the “little things” that help a lab get running faster. Holders, adapters, mounts, clamps and enclosures fall here. For the same reason, jigs and test fixtures are a core use in factories; see jigs and fixtures. A maker can do all of this on an FDM printer, and the hobby guidance on high-strength filaments applies when a fixture carries load.

Test specimens and standards

Research groups print specimens to learn how a material, or a print setting, changes strength. The geometry and test method come from standards: the papers cited here use ASTM D638 and ISO 527-2 for polymer tensile specimens (and ASTM D3039 in one study). The standards themselves are paid documents that we did not read, so follow the current edition if you work to them.

Two recent open-access papers show why printing a specimen is not the same as measuring a material:

• ULTEM 9085 (Marquis et al., Polymers 2026). Evaluating printed parts per ASTM D638, the authors note that manufacturer datasheets give no guidance specific to articles printed in the XY plane, and that failures can start at microstructural anomalies rather than reflecting the material itself. Modest changes to print settings, including contour overlap, raised gage-section failures for ±45° infill Type 1 samples from 5% to 100%, and ultimate tensile strength from 49 ± 2 MPa to 61 ± 2 MPa.
• PETG specimen geometry (Özen et al., Materials 2021). The authors compared four tensile specimen geometries based on ASTM D3039 and ISO 527-2 and found that the chosen slicer parameters affect where in the specimen the failure occurs.

The lesson for makers: a printed bar’s result depends on slicer settings, orientation and the machine, not just the filament. Compare your own prints with each other, with identical settings except one variable, and several specimens per condition. A 2025 exploratory study of PLA and polycarbonate (Aldawood et al.) found large practical differences with build orientation but its own power analysis showed that n = 1 per condition was insufficient to establish significance. Do not compare your result with a datasheet number. For practical orientation and strength guidance, see print orientation for strength and layer adhesion.

Testing is also the expensive part. Universal testing machines are costly, and open-hardware journals publish cheaper builds, for example a 2026 HardwareX micro-compression tester under USD 1,500 with 0.01 N force resolution, validated against a commercial machine on soft PDMS samples in the small-strain range. That device suits soft materials, not PLA tensile bars, so match the instrument to the test.

Novel materials and architected structures

Direct ink writing

Direct ink writing extrudes an engineered paste or gel. A 2022 review in Advanced Materials (Saadi et al.) calls DIW the most versatile 3D printing technique for the broadest range of materials, and says it can print practically any material as long as the precursor ink shows appropriate rheological behaviour. The review covers polymers, ceramics, glass, cement, graphene, metals and multimaterial printing, along with its limits.

A maker’s route in is a syringe extruder on an existing printer; the 2026 HardwareX Allstruder, for example, is described as an open syringe extruder configurable for nearly any extrusion-based printer and supporting syringes from 0.1 to 100 mL. The hardware is the easy half. Formulating an ink that flows, holds shape and cures is a materials-science project in itself, and you should check the safety data of every component.

Lattices and metamaterials

A 2014 Science paper (Zheng et al.) used projection microstereolithography to make octet microlattices from polymers, metals and ceramics. The design meant the individual struts did not bend under pressure, giving materials that were exceptionally stiff, strong and lightweight. Reproducing this needs specialised projection equipment that a hobby resin printer does not provide.

Reflective metals

Laser powder bed fusion of precious metals is hard because gold, silver, copper and platinum alloys are highly reflective and conductive to heat, which leads to poor densification. A 2024 review in Metals (Thangamani et al.) proposes alloying additions, coated powder particles and green or blue lasers as fixes. This is service-bureau territory.

High-throughput and autonomous experiments

Printing is fast, which makes it a good partner for automation. In a 2020 Science Advances paper (Gongora et al.), a system called BEAR combined Bayesian optimization with high-throughput automated experimentation to test the toughness of a parametric family of printed structures. It needed almost 60 times fewer experiments to find high-performing structures than a grid-based search. A maker can borrow the idea without the robot: change one parameter at a time, record every result, and let earlier results guide the next print.

What a maker can and cannot replicate

Task	At home?	Notes
Print fixtures, holders and adapters	Yes	Pick a material for the load and temperature
Compare two print settings with printed bars	Yes, with limits	Use replicates, change one variable, report spread; relative results only
Publish datasheet-style material properties	No	Needs standards, calibrated test machines and controlled specimen preparation
Print pastes with a syringe extruder	Yes, as a project	Ink rheology and curing are the research problem
Print microlattices or precious metals	No	Specialised equipment; use a research or service facility
Test whether a printed part resists a chemical	Limited	Soak a printed coupon in your actual chemical; see chemical resistance data for maker charts, and never assume

Common mistakes

• Comparing a printed bar’s result to a datasheet. Print orientation, settings and test method all differ.
• One specimen per condition. You cannot separate material effects from print-to-print scatter.
• Changing several settings at once. You will not know which one mattered.
• Using a hobby instrument for a test it was not validated for. The HardwareX tester above is validated for soft materials in the small-strain range only.
• Treating one paper’s numbers as general. Each study used its own material, machine and settings.

Frequently asked questions

Can I use a hobby FDM printer to make tensile test specimens?

Yes, you can print them, and they are useful for comparing your own print settings with each other. They are not a substitute for certified material data, because results depend on slicer settings, orientation and the machine, as the ULTEM and PETG studies cited above show. Print several specimens per condition.

Which standards do researchers use for printed polymer specimens?

The papers cited here use ASTM D638 and ISO 527-2 for tensile specimens, and one also used ASTM D3039. These are paid standards that define specimen geometry and test method. Check the current edition before working to one.

Why are gold and silver hard to 3D print?

A 2024 review in Metals reports that the high reflectivity and thermal conductivity of gold, silver, copper and platinum alloys cause poor densification and mechanical properties in laser powder bed fusion. Proposed fixes include alloying additions, coated powders and green or blue lasers. In practice this is done by specialist services.

Can I try direct ink writing at home?

You can add a syringe extruder to some printers, but the harder part is the ink: it needs suitable rheological behaviour and a way to solidify. Treat it as a project, start with a simple, low-hazard paste, and check the safety data of everything you mix.

Sources

• Pearce, Science 2012: Building research equipment with free, open-source hardware
• Baden et al., PLoS Biology 2015: Open Labware, 3-D printing your own lab equipment
• Marquis et al., Polymers 2026: qualification of additively manufactured ULTEM components
• Ozen et al., Materials 2021: tensile specimen geometry for FDM-printed PETG
• Aldawood et al., Polymers 2025: mechanical properties of FDM polycarbonate and PLA specimens
• Kim et al., HardwareX 2026: low-cost micro compression testing device
• Saadi et al., Advanced Materials 2022: Direct ink writing, a 3D printing technology for diverse materials
• Hinton et al., HardwareX 2026: The Allstruder, an open syringe extruder
• Zheng et al., Science 2014: Ultralight, ultrastiff mechanical metamaterials
• Thangamani et al., Metals 2024: laser powder bed fusion in jewelry
• Gongora et al., Science Advances 2020: A Bayesian experimental autonomous researcher for mechanical design