Last month, Lithoz welcomed the ceramics additive manufacturing to market to Berlin for its annual Ceramics AM Conference.
The Conference has, for nine years now, brought together ceramics manufacturers, researchers and materials experts to discuss their work with ceramics 3D printing technology. From research studies to scaled-up production applications, what transpires is a two-day programme of insights and introspection.
After this year’s event, TCT caught up with Lithoz Chief Scientific Officer Martin Schwentenwein [MS] to discuss the growth in Lithoz printer sales, the launch of the CeraFab S320 machine, and its collaborations across bioceramics, non-oxide ceramics, and multi-material printing.
TCT: At the start of the year, Lithoz announced that sales of its ceramic 3D printing machines were up by 30% in 2023 compared to 2022, and that it had doubled material production too. What do you put that growth down to?
MS: “What we are seeing is that more and more manufacturers are now grasping the potential of ceramics 3D printing as a fully-fledged production technology, and not just as an R&D tool. And this, of course, helps to bring more printers into the market. And with every additional printer that is out there, this contributes to the amount of material that is being consumed [as well], which probably led to this quite significant increase in terms of materials consumption. Because obviously, not only printers sold in 2023 contribute to that, but also all the machines having been sold in the past years, and we have more than a quarter of our customers with more than one printer. So, this is, again, a sign that people are not only testing the technology, but they have found some applications. And this is always the best leverage that you can have to increase your consumables and materials business [too].”
TCT: Following on from that, Lithoz unveiled the CeraFab S320 3D printer in September, which boasts the largest build volume of any Lithoz printer. What was the motivation behind developing a machine with that kind of build volume?
MS: “The main rational behind that is to be able to meet the increasing demands, especially in direction of larger components. And for us, it's a perfect complement to the to the S65 which is focusing on really ultra high precision printing, and with the S320, you have a tool that might not give you this extremely high precision, but that enables you to go to significantly larger components, and this definitely will broaden the components and the use cases that can be addressed using our LCM technology.”
Lithoz
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TCT: In addition to the larger build volume, what are the other key capabilities of the machine?
MS: “Well, on the one hand, it's going to be the first system featuring a true 4k projection system. So, this marks the beginning of a new generation for Lithoz printers. This doesn't necessarily mean that this is going to be better or superior to the S65 but, as I commented earlier, it's really to be complimentary, having one tool, the S65, capable of addressing high precision printing and the S320 being able to deliver very good resolution in combination with this higher building envelope. And a very nice example is that we were already able to demonstrate the functionality of the system by being able to print an atomic layer deposition ring in alumina, which has a diameter of 15 inches, which is 380 millimetres if I'm not mistaken, so quite a substantial piece, and we were able to print individual segments using that system, we could assemble them and it's really impressive to see what's now possible using this larger device.”
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TCT: Lithoz serves a host of markets, but medical is perhaps chief among them. How would you assess the progress being made in that industry?
MS: “Every patient is unique, so having a manufacturing technology where you can produce customised or tailored parts without any additional effort, without any additional cost, is naturally something which is extremely attractive. So, it's only logical that in this area, there's also a big demand.
“Of course, the high demands in terms of regulation, certification of medical products and corresponding standardisations make it a bit more cumbersome, or make it a bit slower, but nonetheless, this is one of the main areas where 3D printing and 3D printing of ceramics is already playing a major role, and doing that as a fully-fledged production technology. So, it's not seen as a prototyping technique or something exotic, but it's really been used to produce implants that are already in human use, and in the hundreds, more than 100 surgeries that we know of have been already conducted using implants produced on Lithoz equipment, using Lithoz materials. And that's a really, really impressive number, especially if you keep in mind these quite tough and challenging paths in order to get to a certified medical product.”
Lithoz
TCT: In the last couple of years, Lithoz has partnered with Himed, opening a Bioceramics Center of Excellence in May. Tell us more about the work you’re doing in bioceramics and the impact this facility will have.
MS: “Historically, we have seen that the most successful collaborations or developments were always coming from good and strong collaborations, where you find partners who are not only good, but also having a very complementary expertise and also infrastructure so that you can focus on what you're doing and they can focus what they are doing. And I think the situation with Himed is also very, very similar. We have complementary expertise, we have complementary infrastructure, and this is a very good constellation to push things forward in the area of printing of bio ceramics. As I said, this is a huge topic for where 3D printing is really starting to play a major role. So, having strong partnerships and providing the framework to really accelerate developments, accelerate the production of feedstock, and of implants is seen as absolutely vital by us and by Himed. Because of this common notion, we decided to take the step together, and we are really excited about what this collaboration will bring in the future.”
"The question is not if, it's rather when."
TCT: Another collaboration Lithoz has announced in the last year is a cooperative R&D agreement with Oak Ridge National Laboratory to explore non-oxide ceramics. What do you see as the opportunities in this area?
MS: “So non-oxide ceramics are certainly not the easiest candidate for 3D printing, especially in a lithography based setup such as LCM process or vat photo polymerisation in general. They have very interesting properties in terms of their behaviour, in terms of thermo mechanical properties, very high thermal conductivity for aluminum nitride, extremely high hardness and toughness for silicon nitride, silicon carbide is also a very interesting material, because it combines all these features to a high degree, making it an extremely attractive candidate for many applications, low density, low specific density, also making all of them interesting candidates, also for aerospace applications. So, in terms of properties, they are really interesting, really promising materials, but they are not that easy to structure. So, again, it's also important to have a good collaboration, have a good partnership with competent partners who can enable you to accelerate development also in this direction. And Oak Ridge is definitely among the top names when it comes to not only processing of such materials, but also characterisation, having a lot of very fancy equipment for the assessment and evaluation of these parts. So, it's a similar situation as I explained earlier with Himed, that we really can complement each other, not only in terms of expertise, but also in terms of infrastructure, which is why we chose also to move ahead into this partnership with our colleagues in the US.”
TCT: And how does an international collaboration like the one with ORNL work exactly?
MS: “It's all about establishing the right platforms and the right means for communication, for exchange. The good thing is that we have a quite clear distribution in terms of responsibilities and work that needs to be done in the course of this collaboration. So, it's not necessary to really have a lot of physical exchange. You can do a lot through virtual platforms.
“The experimental work is done partially here. So, for example, 3D printing, obviously developing of suspensions, this is happening here in Vienna. And then also our colleagues in the US, Lithoz America in Troy, New York, contributing, and then the colleagues at Oak Ridge mainly focusing on thermal post processing because for sintering these non-oxide ceramics, you need special infrastructure in terms of furnaces, and then also the subsequent characterisation in order to have a very close and thorough look at these parts; to assess not only the quality of the material, but of the printing process, precision, repeatability, and robustness of the whole process.”
TCT: This time last year, Lithoz revealed it was placing a focus on multi-material printing, investing in AMAREA Technology and debuting the CeraFab Multi 2M30 at Formnext. What progress is being made here?
MS: “So, multi material printing is definitely a hot topic at the moment. It enables people, obviously, to create even more complex designs. At the moment, we're exploring lots of things in terms of a combination of different ceramics, especially to, for example, increase the mechanical or thermo mechanical properties of ceramics with respect to monolithic components and other interesting areas. Again, the medical sector, where you can, with this multi material setup, try to really mimic the structure of biological tissues by introducing hierarchical structures, hierarchical porosity, for example. And then last but not least, the combination of metal and ceramic is a topic that we are working on, and where we are already seeing some first successful results.
“The technology that the colleagues at AMAREA are pushing, it's something complementary to ours. It's addressing larger components. It gives you the possibility of also combining more than two materials, even three or four different ceramics, so it's a different sort of toolbox where you can address other parts or other applications. So, we do not necessarily see a very big overlap between the multi material work that we are doing here in Vienna and the colleagues of AMAREA are doing in Dresden. It's more broadening the range of applications of material combinations that can be addressed by combining these two technologies.”
TCT: Finally, the ceramics market can be considered a fairly conservative market. So, how would you assess the maturity of the ceramics 3D printing sector?
MS: “If I think about discussions we had in the early days of Lithoz where you really had to explain all the basic details of printing and how you can use it for ceramics, and if I think about the last two days in Berlin where the discussions are really at an extremely high level, I can tell you so much has been happening in the last 12 years. It's really crazy the transformation that has been happening. Of course, it would be great if things would be moving faster, but for ceramics, it's a slow process. So, it's important to keep being active in this area, working together with people along the whole process chain involving raw material suppliers, the customers, the OEMs. Only this way is it really possible to further bring this technology to new markets. It's already happening, but of course, there's still a lot to come. And for me, the question is not if, it's rather when.”
