Hot on the Heels of New 3-D Printing Materials

The lack of suitable 3-D printable materials is inhibiting the use of this technology in the medical device space. That, at least, was the takeaway message from a Learning Lab on 3-D printing at BIOMEDevice Boston in March. But never fear. At this very moment, myriad organizations are hard at work developing a range of new 3-D printable materials specifically suitable for medical device applications.

"Looking at materials development, we are starting to see far more interest among people developing polymers for higher-heat applications, remarks Allan Cronen, CEO of GVL Poly (Litchfield, MN). "They are trying to develop polymers that they can modify slightly to use in all kinds of 3-D printing models." The result, he adds, will be the proliferation of 3-D printable high-heat materials that will closely resemble the materials currently used in traditional production processes.

A key obstacle blocking the introduction of new 3-D printable materials has been low demand, rendering commercialization both difficult and expensive. Thus, organizations such as the Kansas Polymer Research Center have developed many new materials for 3-D printing applications but have been prevented from commercializing them. "However, demand for such materials is starting to build," Cronen says. "The technology is obviously there, both in terms of materials development and 3-D printing heads. Thus, I don't think we're too far from the emergence of pretty remarkable upticks in the availability of high-temperature polymers for medical device applications."

Up-and-coming 3-D printable high-heat materials, according to Cronen, will be cheaper and easier to produce than currently available materials. In addition, they will exhibit characteristics that are more suitable for current medical device manufacturing processes. Such materials, he adds, should be introduced to the market within the next 12 months, but companies must begin deploying multiple 3-D printers and consuming sufficient volumes of material in order to render the new technologies commercially viable.

One of the advantages of 3-D printing is that it could eliminate some of the barriers obstructing the development of new manufacturing processes. Using 3-D printing, manufacturers can already perform some processes that are not possible using conventional manufacturing practices. The introduction of multimaterial 3-D printing will bring this advantage to a new level, Cronen states. Several small companies are designing new multimaterial 3-D printing heads and software, while established companies such as Stratasys have incorporated new heads and software into their printers.

"Primarily what we're seeing now is the use of multiple metals in the 3-D printing process," Cronen explains. "However, we will soon see systems that can process combinations of metals and polymers. For example, if the housing of a medical device must be made from a polymer material and the gears inside must be made from a metal, 3-D printing will soon be able to handle this challenge. And while some of these material combinations are still considered pretty space age in the 3-D printing space, companies are having a lot of success developing them."

Bob Michaels is senior technical editor at UBM Canon.

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