The Polish manufacturer of 3D printers based on selective laser sintering technology Sinterit and the chemical group BASF have entered into a cooperation agreement to jointly develop the SLS 3D printing segment through new materials, equipment, and applications.
The technology of selective laser sintering of polymer powders is not yet popular at the level of more familiar 3D printing methods with filaments or photopolymer resins, despite the ability of SLS 3D printers to build functional products at a higher resolution than FDM systems. This is accounted for by both the higher cost of the equipment and materials and the relatively poor choice of the latter. The most common use of SLS devices is 3D printing with polyamides, although other suitable powders can be found, such as thermoplastic polyurethane or polypropylene. In general, the range is rather small compared with the FDM 3D printing. The direct involvement of BASF is evidently designed to solve this problem.
“The main condition for increasing the potential of this technology is new areas of application opened up by new materials. In cooperation with BASF, our company will present new powders for Lisa and NILS 3D printers,” commented Konrad Głowacki, Co-Founder of Sinterit.
“Partnering with Sinterit will make our high performance materials even more affordable. The combination of Sinterit hardware and our SLS 3D printing powders will help users implement new industrial applications with high reliability and quality. This is another step towards the industrialization of additive manufacturing,” commented Stefan Josupeit, Head of Powder Consumables at BASF 3D Printing Solutions.
Sinterit is known primarily for its line of relatively inexpensive, compact Lisa SLS 3D printers, which currently includes three professional systems: the original “budget” Lisa, the more capable Lisa Pro, and the latest and most advanced product in terms of usable volume and performance — the Lisa X. For the industrial sector, the company released the NILS 480 system, an industrial-grade 3D printer with a build volume of 200 x 200 x 330 mm.
The list of consumables for these systems already includes polyamide-11 and polyamide-12, an antistatic version of polyamide-11, three options of thermoplastic polyurethane (Flexa Bright, Flexa Soft, and Flexa Grey), thermoplastic elastomer, and polypropylene. The new materials from BASF will be offered under the Forward AM brand owned by BASF 3D Printing Solutions.
