News and Insights of 3D Printing and Manufacturing
An INEOS Styrolution research and development project reported an overall energy savings of up to 67% through the life cycle of a new styrenics polymer compound. The comparison styrenics compound was traditional Polyamide 12 (PA12). The massive savings derived from the new material benefits manufacturers and customers alike, let alone the wider environmental benefits supplied by energy-efficient products.
Emery Oleochemicals’ Green Polymer Additives business unit has developed a binder system for 3D printing of sinterable metals and ceramics to further extend the material options available to the additive manufacturing industry.
Ford teamed up with HP to reuse spent 3D-printed powders and parts, thus closing a supply chain loop and turning them into injection-molded vehicle parts. The recycled materials are being used to manufacture injection-molded fuel-line clips installed first on Super Duty F-250 trucks. The parts have better chemical and moisture resistance than conventional versions, are 7% lighter and cost 10% less. The Ford research team has identified 10 other fuel-line clips on existing vehicles that could benefit from this innovative use of material and are migrating it to future models.
Water scarcity is a major global problem. More than 1.1 billion people do not have access to the liquid that sustains life, while nearly 3 billion experience water scarcity at some point (WWF). In an effort to combat this reality—which has the potential to worsen dramatically due to the climate crisis—GE Research is teaming up with the University of California at Berkeley, University of Chicago and University of South Alabama to develop a 3D printed device that can turn air into safe drinking water.
The Additive Manufacturer Green Trade Association (AMGTA), a global trade organization created to promote the environmental benefits of additive manufacturing (AM), announced that eight additional leading AM organizations joined the trade group to advance sustainable AM. The AMGTA’s now has twenty members.
XPRIZE launched the $100M XPRIZE Carbon Removal sponsored by Elon Musk and the Musk Foundation and there is little doubt that 3D printing will accelerate and enable reaching this objective. This four-year global competition invites innovators and teams from anywhere on the planet to create and demonstrate a solution that can pull carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere or oceans and lock it away permanently in an environmentally benign way.
Recreus introduced Reciflex, a new flexible TPU filament that is 100% recycled. This flexible TP ...
RIZE‘s 2XC desktop industrial 3D printer with its RIZIUM Carbon Filament material has received Greenguard certification. The certification is based on the ANSI/CAN/UL 2904, “Standard Method for Testing and Assessing Particle and Chemical Emissions from 3D Printers.”
3D printed buildings are popping up in more and more places, like the recent 3 floors apartment building in Germany but so far Africa has been only marginally on the map. 14Trees are about to change that. Established by LafargeHolcim, a world-leading provider of cement and concrete with 70,000 employees, 14Trees is focused on building affordable houses, schools and social infrastructures in Africa.
In a surprising and quite interesting turn of events, Canon Ecology Industry Co., Ltd. (a company founded in 2004 for the repair and regeneration of miscellaneous electrical and electronic equipment) has independently developed two types of filaments (PC-ABS, HIPS) for 3D printers made of 100% recycled plastic as the first in-house developed products. This filament is made from recycled plastic for the exterior of broken and old Canon multifunction devices, including copiers and toner cartridges collected from the market.