Scientists have come up with the idea of ​​printing the base for corals on a 3D printer. This will keep their population alive.

New 3D printing technology will help speed up the initial stages of coral recovery.

Previously

scientists and activists began to leave the necessaryareas where corals grow, special concrete and metal structures that can serve as the basis for their new growth. But on such frameworks, the limestone skeletons of coral polyps form slowly. 

The authors of the new work suggested usingstructures that are closer to natural, produced using 3D printing. The researchers scanned the spatial shape of a real coral, and printed it using a specially developed “ink” based on photo-curable calcium carbonate (Calcium Carbonate Photo-initiated, CCP), limestone. 

During the experiment, the authors tested this material in an aquarium, and it turned out to be non-toxic to living organisms. 

After this, they placed it on the printedthe structures are microscopic fragments of living coral polyps and secured them so that they actively begin to grow. As a result, according to the authors, the basis for the future reef is more actively populated and also develops more reliably.  

Coral microfragments grow quickly on the calcium carbonate printed surface we created, since they do not need to start building from a limestone structure.

Charlotte Houser, a scientist at the Saudi King Abdullah University of Science and Technology

Read more:

AI solved a biological problem that scientists have been battling for 50 years

A millisecond instead of 30 trillion years for a task: China introduced a new quantum computer

Scientists are looking for people who cannot be infected with COVID-19. Based on their data, they will make a medicine