ExOne AMGTA
ExOne has joined the Additive Manufacturer Green Trade Association (AMGTA) as a founding member.
The AMGTA was set up by Sintavia in November 2019 to promote the benefits of additive manufacturing as a sustainable technology. ExOne joins Sintavia, QC Labs, Taiyo Nippon Sanso as founding members, with CEO John Hartner also agreeing to serve on the AMGTA Board of Directors. In this role, the company will be able to influence the strategic direction of the organisation.
In total, there are now 13 organisations involved with the AMGTA organisation with the likes of Stryker, Siemens, SLM Solutions, Materialise, GE Additive and EOS joining as participants in October. Together, the organisation is hoping to educate others about the positive environmental benefits of 3D printing, while also developing best practices and engaging in research into the sustainability of the technology. In June last year, AMGTA announced it was to conduct a literature-based review on the environmental sustainability of metal additive manufacturing, its first commissioned research project, with a paper authored by Jeremy Faludi, Ph.D being published in November. Through this project, it was found that metal AM would not be a more sustainable method of manufacture for many industry applications, but there are opportunities, particularly when resource-intensive materials are greatly reduced and when designs are significantly lightweighted, in aerospace, for example.
More on the AMGTA:
- Expert panel: The role of sustainable design in additive manufacturing
- AMGTA Executive DIrector Sherry Handel: Promoting the sustainability benefits of additive manufacturing through research
- #40 Additive Insight: AMGTA's Sherry Handel on green additive manufacturing
One key conclusion of this research is that more needs to be carried out, and while ExOne believes its binder jetting technology to be a sustainable method of manufacturing, it also stresses that more work needs to be done to assess the impact of powder creation, energy usage and emissions. As such, it has joined up with the AMGTA as a founder member.
“ExOne is excited to join with other manufacturing and technology companies through the AMGTA to support independent research into the sustainability aspects of 3D printing,” commented Hartner. “While our team at ExOne is confident about the broad sustainability benefits of our binder jetting technology, our customers are eager to have independent data that demonstrates these benefits through the whole end-to-end lifecycle. We are delighted to support AMGTA’s important work in this area.”
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