This chapter discusses the advantages and limitations of 3D printing technology for the production of batteries and supercapacitors. It explains how 3D printing methods facilitate the build of microdevices with hierarchical nanoarchitectures and controlled microstructure. It also reviews recent progress in fabricating electrodes and electrolytes using 3D-printed functional materials.

This chapter is intended to identify materials, processes, and designs that will lead to great advances in powder-binder forming technologies. It discusses some of the structures obtained through these advances in powder-binder technologies such as binder jetting and extrusion-based additive manufacturing, including bound-metal deposition and fused-filament fabrication: oxidation-resistant high-temperature alloys, anisotropic structures, submicrometer-scale structures, surface hard materials, and artist metallic clays. Some of the advances discussed include the developments in process involving plastics, emulsions, ceramics, and porous structures and foams. Improvements in the design processes have led to the development of functional structures, controlled porosity, and bioinspired structures.

This chapter gives an overview of how steel castings may be effectively adapted to modern concurrent engineering processes. The chapter discusses computer aided design programs, solid modeling, solidification simulation programs, and rapid prototyping.