Materialise Powder, Prototyping Platform Empower Sustainability

Materialise is helping manufacturers eliminate waste with the launch of two new products — the reusable Bluesint PA12 powder and the Process Turner online platform for rapid prototyping.

The Materialise Bluesint PA 12 makes it possible to print with up to 100% reused powder, which drastically increases the resource efficiency of laser sintering. Parts printed with Bluesint PA12 have similar mechanical and visual properties, enabling users to make a choice based on both technical specifications and environmental impact. This year, Materialise plans to run several laser sintering machines with Bluesint PA12. In the start-up phase alone, the company aims to reuse more than five tons of powder that would normally become waste. Materialise is also offering a beta program for Bluesint PA12 service and invites selected customers with diverse applications and a focus on sustainability to participate in the market validation process for the new technology.

The Materialise Process Tuner application helps scale up 3D print production in a more sustainable way by enabling users to find optimal print settings without wasting machine and engineering time. Utilizing advanced automation, Artificial Intelligence and smart simulations to predict suboptimal prints, the application makes it possible to drastically reduce the number of physical test prints required to find the optimal print settings. This enables users to reduce the cost and waste associated with printing hundreds of test samples before finding the optimal process parameters. It also speeds up the process tuning that is required for mass manufacturing of 3D printed parts. The application can be accessed via a web browser, through an API or can be deployed and run on site.