“Obstacles must be overcome before 3D printing can see mass production”

What are the pos­sib­il­it­ies and chal­lenges for 3D print­ing in the com­ing years? What is it still lack­ing to enter the mass pro­duc­tion market?

Sumeet Jain. Addit­ive man­u­fac­tur­ing has evolved con­sid­er­ably over the last dec­ade, par­tic­u­larly in terms of the mater­i­als avail­able. Nev­er­the­less, there are still obstacles to over­come if industry is to adopt 3D print­ing for mass pro­duc­tion. These include lack of pro­duc­tion grade mater­i­als, product reli­ab­il­ity and repeat­ab­il­ity, post-pro­cessing and cost per part. 

How­ever, man­u­fac­tur­ers in vari­ous sec­tors do now recog­nise the untapped poten­tial of this tech­no­logy, and are work­ing to over­come these chal­lenges. 3D print­ing enables digit­isa­tion and decent­ral­isa­tion of pro­duc­tion, which increases design free­dom, product cus­tom­isa­tion, sim­pli­fic­a­tion of the sup­ply chain and optim­isa­tion of invent­ory management.

We really got to see the poten­tial of addit­ive man­u­fac­tur­ing dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, par­tic­u­larly when it proved to be a for­mid­able way to accel­er­ate the devel­op­ment and pro­duc­tion of cer­tain products. This impetus is likely to increase the reli­ab­il­ity of addit­ive man­u­fac­tur­ing in the com­ing years, not­ably through tech­no­lo­gic­al advances and avail­ab­il­ity of pro­duc­tion scale materials.

Does addit­ive man­u­fac­tur­ing increase sustainability?

Addit­ive man­u­fac­tur­ing is com­pat­ible with an industry that is sus­tain­able not only from a busi­ness per­spect­ive, but also from a tech­no­lo­gic­al and health per­spect­ive. Its free­dom of design allows pro­duc­tion of light­er objects and reduces unne­ces­sary con­sump­tion of start­ing mater­i­als. In addi­tion, it allows optim­al use of machine tools and the man­u­fac­ture of cus­tom­ised products such as pros­theses, dent­al implants, hel­mets and oth­er pro­tect­ive equipment.

As sus­tain­ab­il­ity is at the heart of our strategy, we also offer poly­mers pro­duced from bio­sourced poly­am­ide powders, and we are act­ively devel­op­ing bio­de­grad­able and recyc­lable products to improve the envir­on­ment­al impact of 3D prin­ted products.

You are work­ing with the Amer­ic­an start-up Con­tinu­ous Com­pos­ites to devel­op a new tech­no­logy for print­ing con­tinu­ous car­bon fibres with res­ins. What is your objective?

Arkema’s part­ner­ship with Con­tinu­ous Com­pos­ites is a per­fect example of how col­lab­or­a­tion between com­ple­ment­ary expert­ise can accel­er­ate innov­a­tion. Con­tinu­ous Com­pos­ites’ unique con­tinu­ous fibre 3D print­ing tech­no­logy uses Arkema’s ther­moset­ting res­ins (N3xtDimension®). This tech­nique enables us to pro­duce light­weight com­pos­ite mater­i­als. In addi­tion, Con­tinu­ous Com­pos­ites’ CF3D tech­no­logy pro­duces less waste and requires less labour, provid­ing a sus­tain­able altern­at­ive to con­ven­tion­al com­pos­ite manufacturing.

A large pro­por­tion of products made using com­pos­ites (such as air­craft parts, For­mula 1 cars or sports goods) can be man­u­fac­tured in this way. CF3D tech­no­logy can offer con­sid­er­able cost sav­ings, open­ing up 3D print­ing to com­mon applic­a­tions, espe­cially where com­pos­ites are not yet in use.

Will the use of addit­ive man­u­fac­tur­ing become widespread? 

The know­ledge and dif­fu­sion of 3D print­ing is increas­ing day by day. Man­u­fac­tur­ers are increas­ingly look­ing for a tech­no­logy cap­able of respond­ing to requests for mass product cus­tom­isa­tion. Addit­ive man­u­fac­tur­ing has already trans­formed cer­tain sec­tors such as the dent­al industry, which is rap­idly con­vert­ing to digit­al dentistry. 

Dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, the addit­ive man­u­fac­tur­ing industry has demon­strated its abil­ity to col­lab­or­ate across bor­ders and share its expert­ise. Many essen­tial sup­plies, such as parts for res­pir­at­ors, nas­al swabs and visors, were pro­duced using 3D print­ing dur­ing the crisis to meet loc­al demands.