Printing with Ice: How Amsterdam Physicists Are Reinventing 3D Printing

Imagine a 3D printer that uses water as its only material, builds structures without any support, and leaves behind nothing but clean water when you are done. That is exactly what a team of physicists at the University of Amsterdam has achieved — and their method could reshape everything from tissue engineering to construction on Mars.

In a paper published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), researchers Menno Demmenie, Stefan Kooij, and Daniel Bonn demonstrate a technique for 3D printing intricate ice structures inside a vacuum chamber, using nothing more than supercooled water and the physics of evaporative cooling.

The Science: Sweat, but for Water

The principle behind ice printing is the same one that keeps you cool on a hot day — evaporative cooling. When water molecules escape into the air, they carry heat with them. The Amsterdam team exploits this in a low-pressure vacuum chamber: even at room temperature, water evaporates rapidly under reduced pressure.

As each molecule leaves, the remaining water cools further, eventually dropping below zero degrees Celsius while staying liquid — a state known as supercooling. The printer then extrudes an ultra-thin stream of this supercooled water, just 16 micrometres across (thinner than a human hair), onto an already-formed layer of ice. The stream freezes instantly on contact.

The result is a clean, precise printing process with no heated bed, no filament, and no chemical binders — just water transitioning between states.

No Supports Needed: Printing at 14 Degrees

One of the most remarkable breakthroughs in this research is the ability to print ice structures at extreme angles without support material. By varying the speed of the 3D printer, the team can create pillars tilted as far as 14 degrees from the horizontal — something that would be impossible with conventional FDM printing without extensive support structures.

In their demonstration, the researchers printed a full profile of a human face, with overhanging features standing on their own. This capability dramatically expands the design possibilities for ice-based structures and eliminates the need for post-processing to remove supports.

Earlier work drew widespread attention in December 2025, when the team 3D-printed a Christmas tree made entirely of ice — a festive proof of concept that showcased the technique’s potential for complex, branching geometries.

Clean, Reversible, and Zero Waste

Perhaps the most elegant aspect of the process is its reversibility. When the vacuum pump is switched off and the chamber returns to normal pressure, the ice simply melts back into clean water. There is no waste, no residue, and no material to recycle or dispose of.

This stands in sharp contrast to conventional 3D printing, where support structures, failed prints, and purge towers generate significant material waste. For researchers working in sterile environments, the ability to dissolve the entire print into pure water is a major practical advantage.

Practical Applications: From Lab to Mars

While ice printing may sound like a novelty, the Amsterdam team identifies several serious applications for their technology:

Tissue Engineering: Pure ice structures can serve as temporary scaffolding for growing biological tissue. Once the tissue has formed around the ice framework, the scaffold melts away, leaving a perfectly shaped tissue structure with no foreign material to remove.

Microfluidics: Researchers can print intricate ice channels inside a device, then melt them away to create hollow microfluidic pathways. This could simplify the manufacturing of lab-on-a-chip devices used in medical diagnostics and chemical analysis.

Construction on Mars: The technique may be uniquely suited for off-world building. Mars has an average surface temperature of about minus 60 degrees Celsius and an atmosphere only one percent as dense as Earth’s — naturally low-pressure conditions where water ice is stable. Future colonists could potentially use local water ice and this printing method to build structures without transporting heavy materials from Earth.

What This Means for the 3D Printing Industry

For the broader 3D printing community, this research highlights a trend that has been accelerating throughout 2026: the expansion of printable materials far beyond traditional plastics and metals. From dental ceramics to contact lenses, and now ice, additive manufacturing continues to push into territory that was unimaginable just a few years ago.

While desktop FDM printers like those from Bambu Lab remain the workhorses of custom figurine and prototype production, breakthrough research like this expands the definition of what 3D printing can be. It is a reminder that innovation in additive manufacturing is not just about faster speeds and bigger build volumes — it is about fundamentally new ways of creating objects.

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Conclusion

The University of Amsterdam’s ice printing technique is a beautiful example of how fundamental physics can unlock entirely new manufacturing methods. By turning evaporative cooling into a precision fabrication tool, the researchers have opened doors to applications in medicine, microfluidics, and even space exploration. As 3D printing technology continues to evolve at breakneck speed, the only limit seems to be the creativity of the scientists and engineers pushing its boundaries.

Source: Three-Dimensional Printing of Ice Structures via Evaporative Cooling in Vacuum, PNAS 2026. Menno Demmenie, Stefan Kooij, and Daniel Bonn, University of Amsterdam.