MATERIALS | 3D PRINTING
There’s plenty going on right at the top of the polymer performance pyramid too. Polyaryletherk- etone pioneer Victrex announced the develop- ment of two new AM-customised PAEK products last July: a high strength material for SLS, and a filament with better Z-strength than existing PAEK materials and better printability for FFF. Rival Evonik recently said it had become the first company in the world to develop a polymer filament based on PEEK (polyetheretherketone) in implant-grade quality for medical implants. The new Evonik filament is based on Vestakeep
i4 G, a highly viscous implant-grade material. This product, which Evonik says exhibits impressive biocompatibility, biostability, and x-ray transpar- ency, is already well-established in medical technology applications such as spinal implants, sports medicine, and maxillofacial surgery. Evonik says it will also offer a less expensive “testing grade” version of its PEEK filament for FFF technology. It has the exact same processing and mechanical product properties as the implant- grade material, but without the documentation needed for approval in medical device applications. Solvay has broadened its portfolio of high-per- formance filaments for premium AM applications with the introduction of three medical grade products for use in the healthcare industry. A neat KetaSpire PEEK AM filament (NT1 HC) and a 10-%t carbon fibre reinforced grade, KetaSpire CF10 HC, together with a neat Radel polyphenylsulphone (PPSU) filament (NT1 HC) are Solvay’s first medical grade AM filaments for limited contact applications. “The healthcare industry is quickly emerging as
a leading market to benefit from AM technology which makes customised parts for single use or low volumes possible,” says Christophe Schramm, Additive Manufacturing business manager at Solvay’s Specialty Polymers global business unit. “However, there is still a very limited choice of high-
Stratasys has launched its first printers for SLA
Evonik says it was the first company in the world to
develop a polymer filament based on PEEK (polyether ether ketone) in implant-grade quality for use as a 3D printing material for implants
performance filaments that meet the stringent regulatory requirements in healthcare, and this is the gap we want to close with our new selection of medical grade products.”
Multiple alliances Major polymer makers have been buying into the AM market, or at least forming alliances with established players, for some time. But in recent months, the pace has increased noticeably.DSM appears to be leading the pack in this regard. DSM has been pioneering AM technology for decades, with its Somos materials for stereolithography (SLA). More recently though, it has ramped up its activities in all sorts of AM technologies (see Injection World June 2018). In the last few months, especially around the Rapid + TCT show in Anaheim, US, in May, it made a flurry of announcements. In April, for example, it said it was partnering
with Stratasys, as that company moves for the first time into SLA with a new printer, the V650 Flex. Stratasys offers customers recipes for Somos stereolithography resins, commercially available directly from the company. Hugo da Silva, VP of Additive Manufacturing at DSM, calls Stratasys’ entrance into the SLA segment “a game-changer for the industry.” In May, DSM entered into another partnership, with San Francisco-based Origin, a company DSM describes as a pioneer in Open Additive Manufac- turing. The companies will work together to develop new materials for AM and explore new applications. Even before the announcement, they were working together for months to optimise DSM’s photopolymer material for Origin’s “pro- grammable photopolymerisation” P3 technology. Somos PerForm HW is the first DSM material to join the Origin line-up. DSM says PerForm HW will share the properties of the original Somos PerForm “that have made it the material of choice for applications that require strong, stiff, and high
30 INJECTION WORLD | June 2019
www.injectionworld.com
PHOTO: STRATASYS
PHOTO: EVONIK
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