We’ll start with event and business news in today’s 3D Printing News Briefs as formnext released some event announcements and Anisoprint opened a new manufacturing facility in Luxembourg. Subsequently, a technical non-profit received a Cool Idea Award from Protolabs, and a collaborative team of research partners is scaling up a process for converting alcohol from renewable or industrial exhaust gases into jet or diesel fuel. Finally, Hackaday posted a cool project about filtering coffee through 3D printed glass.
Formnext 2021 will hold physical event, Formnext Tokyo will be postponed
As we are approaching the official event season for the AM industry, Mesago Messe Frankfurt and the Formnext team have announced that formnext 2021 will take place from November 16 to 19 as a physical on-site event in Germany, with around 450 confirmed exhibitors. The preparations have started in earnest and highlights will include presentations from the partner country Italy, lectures by industry experts, the innovations of the purmundus Challenge, TCT Conference and Stage and more. Now that last year’s event has been converted to digital, you can imagine that the entire AM community will be delighted with this news complemented by Formnext Digital Days from November 30th to December 1st.
“In discussions with members of the community in recent years, we have once again recognized the importance of Formnext,” says Sascha F. Wenzler, Vice President Formnext at Mesago Messe Frankfurt GmbH. “This fair has an exuberance and innovative spirit that is unbeatable. Just knowing that we can offer that kind of creative space again, where people can talk face to face, have productive conversations over coffee, touch products, and discuss their progress with the support of the entire community, is great. “
On the other hand, Messe Frankfurt Japan Ltd has made the decision to postpone the Formnext Forum Tokyo for health and safety reasons. The event, which was originally supposed to take place next month, will now take place in September 2022.
Anisoprint starts production in the EU
The continuous fiber 3D printer manufacturer Anisoprint announced that it has relocated production to Luxembourg almost three years after establishing its headquarters in the EU and has now received the “Made in Luxembourg” label from the Chamber of Commerce for compliance with its standards. The company has previously relied on contract manufacturing, but found it too difficult in terms of schedule and quality management during the pandemic, which is why it decided to organize production in Luxembourg near the headquarters. All inspections of the chamber have now been completed and Anisoprint has started to deliver its first printers with the label “Made in Luxembourg” to customers.
“Since the first introduction of our products in 2018, we have been constantly looking for an ideal manufacturing solution, trying to find a balance between quality, customer proximity, logistics and delivery times, predictability and costs. With the recent COVID-19 outbreak disrupting all supply chains, contract manufacturing no longer seemed like the best option. We had to take control of many other production steps in order to meet the quality and delivery time expectations of our customers and partners, ”said Fedor Antonov, CEO of Anisoprint. “After carefully weighing up all options and locations, we decided to set up our own production facility in Luxembourg next to our headquarters. We have been working on this step since last year and are proud to receive a “Made in Luxembourg” label today for the first batch of Composer 3D printers manufactured in our new factories. ”
Non-profit Empowering Youth receives Cool Idea Award
Protolabs (NYSE: PRLB) has selected the nonprofit The BOOM as the latest recipient of the Cool Idea Award, a manufacturing grant that accelerates the development of innovative products. The BOOM is helping at-risk youth in the Bayview neighborhood of San Francisco achieve better futures by teaching them engineering and entrepreneurship skills. In the program, participants learn to build a retro boombox and bring it to market, and gain experience in order to later develop their own product ideas. Protolabs partnered with the organization to build a part that holds battery cells together to make a package that powers the boombox. The unique part makes the backpack expandable and has a spacer nut, 3D printed from nylon with HP’s Multi Jet Fusion technology.
“It’s exciting to have the opportunity to use our expertise to help a nonprofit that does such important work in their community. BOOM’s efforts provide the kind of experiences kids need to learn about business, technology, and manufacturing in order to grow both creatively and practically, ”said Robert Bodor, President and CEO of Protolabs.
Conversion of alcohol from renewable exhaust gas into fuel
See how a PNNL patented catalyst combined with a 3D printed microchannel reactor can convert ethanol into a useful chemical with several commercial uses, including jet fuel. (Video by Eric Francavilla; animation by Mike Perkins | Pacific Northwest National Laboratory)
Oregon State University research partners and LanzaTech, who developed carbon recycling technology, are working at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) to develop a patented process for converting alcohol made from renewable or industrial waste gases, convert to diesel and kerosene. In short, the PNNL patented catalyst, when combined with a 3D printed microchannel reactor, can convert ethanol into a useful “platform” chemical called n-butene, which has several commercial uses. This is a one-step chemical conversion that streamlines the current multi-step process, making it more efficient as well as cheaper and also more sustainable. Also, through 3D printing, the team can create a folded honeycomb out of smaller reactors that increases the surface-to-volume ratio available for the reaction itself.
“The possibility of combining the production of microchannels with large-area catalyst carriers in one process step with new multi-material additive manufacturing technologies has the potential to significantly reduce the costs of these reactors. We are excited to partner with PNNL and LanzaTech in this endeavor, ”said Brian Paul, lead researcher at Oregon State.
The team published an initial research study on ACS Catalysis and later a follow-up study with more information.
Making coffee with 3D printed glass
After all, a manufacturer called Ahron Wayne worked on 3D printing specially impregnated filaments filled with alternative materials and created a prototype print for an experiment that Hackaday found quite interesting. 3D printing isn’t just about UV cured resins and molten plastics, and Wayne specifically focused on a glass-impregnated filament that The Virtual Foundry developed. This filament is full of very tiny glass particles and the idea is that it can be 3D printed like a normal plastic filament like PLA. It is then heated in a debinding process that removes the plastic, and a sintering process re-heats the pressure to bond the remaining glass particles together. Wayne decided to use this 3D printed glass and filter coffee through it, which while not the most efficient way to make a cup of joe, at least worked.
“It’s a complex process that results in some dimensional shrinkage and porosity in the finished part. However, where see some flaws [Ahron] We saw the opportunity, ”said Hackaday author Lewin Day. “The porous printed part was used to filter coffee using a small vacuum from what sounds like a water venturi.”
Comments are closed.