Arkema will open a 3D Printing Center of Excellence where the company will drive the further development of 3D printing resins next week.
Located at its Sartomer facility in Exton, Pa., the new production base adds to the company’s global additive manufacturing material development network. This will be further enhanced with the €20m expansion of its Mont site in France, pledged for next year.
Sartomer is an Arkema subsidiary division which has expertise in materials designed for UV-curable additive manufacturing resins under the N3xtDimension brand. Boasting thermoplastic-like mechanical properties, these materials have been applied in the dental, sports and electronics sectors. Targeting industry, Arkema is looking to deliver material products to market that can enable mass manufacturing with 3D printing. Arkema already offers a wealth of polymer materials for material extrusion, laser sintering and VAT photopolymerisation processes, and believes it also has a good understanding of end-use applications and typical customer requirements. But for 3D printing to become a high-volume production tool, high quality materials will be key, and for their development collaboration will be pivotal.
The 3D Printing Center of Excellence will thus provide a location where Sartomer’s chemical specialists and the application engineers of its respective partners can work side by side to develop industry-grade resins. It will also house SLA, DLP, and MJP printers for tests to be carried out.
“Sartomer is a historic partner for 3D printing pioneers,” commented Sumeet Jain, Global Director – 3D printing at Sartomer. “We’re launching the 3D Printing Center of Excellence to deepen our support of the visionaries working to develop innovative 3D printed materials.”
The 3D Printing Center of Excellence’s grand opening is scheduled for July 30th 2018.
