Sub-zero additive manufacturing: a review of peculiarities and applications of additive manufacturing at temperatures below 0 °C

Invariably all Additive Manufacturing (AM) processes occur in a narrowly controlled range of temperature and/or pressure. All established AM processes for metals and non-metals occur at ambient or higher temperatures. However, in recent years, AM processes are being developed for unique materials such as bio gels, medicines, colloids, aqueous solutions, etc., with lower working temperatures, sometimes even below 0 °C. Authors use the term Sub-Zero Additive Manufacturing (SZ-AM) for all such processes. The present review article gathers the work related to SZ-AM reported in recent years. This review article provides a bird-eye view of a wide range of applications and technical details of SZ-AM in numerous fields such as manufacturing, medicine, architecture, etc. The review helps to understand the challenges and the future scope of developing commercial SZ-AM machines. The case studies help determine the feasibility of using the SZ-AM process for unique materials for potential applications.