Category Archives: Discovery, invention and application

Materials and equipment upgrades add to 3D printing’s appeal

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Back in 2013, TMR+ hinted that the arrival of new feedstocks such as TPU 92A-1 – a flexible and durable thermoplastic – would make 3D printers a much more compelling proposition for product developers. Building on this, there are other factors to consider too –

Commercial additive manufacturing (AM) tools with multiple nozzles are paving the way for 3D-printed workpieces with tailored materials properties – the Objet500 Connex3 is a recent example.

In the lab, researchers are exploring AM designs that combine 3D and ink-jet printing, which bring additional functionality through the use of conductive and other custom inks.

3D printers such as the Freeformer from German production tool maker Arburg further extend the choice of starting materials by accepting granulated feedstock rather than specialized spools of pre-formed material that can turn out to be an expensive option for users.

“The mark-up on feedstock for 3D printing can be anywhere from 10 to 100 times the cost of the raw material, so the Arburg tool could be one way around that,” Anthony Vicari of Lux Research told TMR+. “It’s not just about cheaper materials though, there are other benefits,” he added, “you put your material through one less melt cycle, which should reduce product degradation.”

Vicari and his team have recently updated their projections for high-performance thermoplastics and see additive manufacturing as a growth area for this family of materials as 3D printing migrates from prototyping to manufacturing.

Process improvements are also making an impact.

For example, optics specialist LUXeXcel is using a slow curing technique to upgrade the performance of components printed from transparent resins for use in LEDs and other devices. The approach is designed to combat the formation of stepped features that would otherwise occur as a consequence of layer-by-layer fabrication.

Switching from plastics to ceramics, Vicari mentions Ceralink as another example. The US firm has developed a method for producing silicon carbide/silicon carbide composites using powder bed inkjet 3D printers.

The composite material is said to offer lighter weight, higher temperature performance, and higher wear resistance than nickel alloys and titanium alloys for aerospace jet engine components, and this highlights where 3D printing will have the biggest impact – when it brings something different to the process of translating new materials into devices.

Conventional volume manufacturing techniques such as injection molding will always be cheaper on a per unit basis, but this misses the point of 3D printing.

Commercial outlook

3D printing: applications and market size (click on image to enlarge). Source: Lux Research

3D printing: applications and total addressable market (click on image to enlarge). Source: Lux Research

Some of the unique selling points of AM include customization for market segments such as orthapedic implants, prosthetics and sporting goods. Another positive is product assembly.

“With 3D printing you can often manufacture several parts as one piece, which reduces construction costs, but can also save on regulatory filings too,” Vicari points out.

The on-demand nature of AM means that 3D printing could help firms to reduce product inventory (as well as tooling storage) and lower warehouse costs. It also offers supply-chain security in sectors such as space and defence, by enabling on-site production of replacement parts.

Related links –

TPU 92A-1 datasheet (PDF via materialise.com)

Stratasys’ Big Announcement — Multi-colour, Multi-material 3D Printing with the New Objet500 Connex3 (3dprintingindustry.com)

Printing Batteries – new inks and tools allow 3-D printing of lithium-ion technology (MIT Technology review)

3D Printed Silicon Carbide: Ceralink’s Novel Production Process for Jet Engine Material (luxresearchinc.com/blog)

World Economic Forum announces top 10 emerging technologies for 2014

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3D printing, self-healing materials and energy-efficient water purification were tagged by the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Emerging Technologies as breakthroughs last year, but what does the future look like in 2014? Something that won’t come as a surprise is the key role of advanced materials in driving technology to the next level, as illustrated by our highlights from the 2014 list –

  • Body-adapted Wearable Electronics

    • Small, lightweight and flexible components together with specialized coatings to protect products from sweat and rain. Applications include navigation aids, health monitoring devices and surgical tools.

  • Nanostructured Carbon Composites

    • Lighter, stronger materials for more efficient vehicles, which are easy to recover and reuse.

  • Grid-scale Electricity Storage

    • More affordable alternatives to pumped storage hydropower for overcoming the intermittent nature of clean energy. Concepts being explored include flow-batteries and graphene supercapacitors.

  • Nanowire Lithium-ion Batteries

    • Ramping up battery energy density will extend the range of electric vehicles and increase the running time of mobile devices. Results suggest that designs based on silicon nanowires could deliver 30-40% more electricity than today’s lithium-ion batteries.

  • Brain-computer Interfaces

    • The challenges here build on those of body-adapted wearable electronics to include biocompatible materials and thin film technologies to protect implanted electronics.

Barriers to technology translation
As well as announcing its top 10 emerging technologies for 2014, the council has also voiced its thoughts on major hurdles in the translation pipeline –

“Uninformed public opinion, outdated government and intergovernmental regulations, and inadequate existing funding models for research and development are the greatest challenges in effectively moving new technologies from the research lab to people’s lives.”
Global Agenda Council on Emerging Technologies.

Related stories on the web –

What’s the future for wearable technology? (forumblog.org)

Emerging technology as an agent for change (forumblog.org)

Trajectories in translation: parallels between old and new materials

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Can looking at the commercialization history of mature materials such as Bakelite, Teflon and silicon carbide offer clues to the likely development timelines for today’s rising stars such as graphene, metal organic frameworks, and silver nanowires, to give just a few examples? Analyst firm Lux Research thinks so, and has released its results in a report dubbed “Planning for ripe fruit: Materials innovation lifecycles as a predictive scouting tool.”

In the study, Lux Research looked at the development trajectories of 49 materials by examining the gap from the first major jump in patent activity to the commercialization milestones that followed – a period that typically spanned anywhere from 10 to 25 years, but extended much further in some cases.

From the analysis, the team found that it could group the materials into a number of classes –

whether the material was single- or multi-functional,

whether the discovery was targeted or unplanned,

and whether it was an enhancing or platform technology.

“When we looked at the different materials in each class, we found parallels in the invention-to-commercialization pathways,” Anthony Vicari – one of the lead analysts on the study – told TMR+.

In principle, this means that once you know which category a new material falls into, you can identify some of the likely barriers to commercialization – a framework that could be a big help for start-ups when estimating development times.

“There’s often an unrealistic expectation in how quickly new materials will make it to the market, and this analysis offers a starting point for strategic decision making,” he said.

Different classes, different challenges
Let’s look at some of the development hurdles in more detail, starting with multifunctional materials.

“The big advantage of this class of materials is that they can potentially replace multiple parts, but this typically requires a high level of redesign and significant developer resources, which lengthens the commercialization time,” said Vicari.

“For enhancing materials, it is pretty clear from the beginning what the application is – the challenges here are focused on getting good performance at the right price,” he continued.

Platform technologies on the other hand can pose a deeper problem, as it can take time to figure out what the key applications are.

Vicari gives the example of silicon carbide (SiC). “There was an 80 year gap from demonstration to commercialization,” he points out.

Today, SiC is a key material in LED and power electronics sectors.

Looking at parallels between SiC and emerging materials, Vicari believes that metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), which were first reported in the 1950s, could be on a similar development timeframe. This would see non-niche commercial products launching around 2035.

Further reading on the web –

Metal-organic frameworks for energy storage (Royal Society of Chemistry)

National University of Singapore and BASF team up to develop the use of graphene in organic electronic devices

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BASF has formed a partnership with National University of Singapore’s (NUS) Graphene Research Centre (GRC) to develop the use of graphene – a 2D form of carbon – in organic electronic devices, such as organic light emitting diodes (OLED). The goal of the collaboration is to interface graphene films with organic electronic materials to create more efficient and more flexible lighting devices.

“Graphene is a fascinating material, with regard to both its electronic properties and its mechanical strength. We have been engaged in the research of graphene for several years and are now ready to enter partnerships in order to complement and speed up our device development,” commented Josef Wünsch, Senior Vice President of Modeling & Formulation Research at BASF, who is also responsible at the firm for incubation in the area of graphene.

The NUS team at GRC will be responsible for the synthesis and characterisation of the graphene. The researchers have already developed a patent-pending methodology for the reliable growth and transfer of high-quality graphene films onto different flexible substrates that can be used in solar cells and lighting panels.

Translating advanced materials
As Wünsch mentioned, BASF has been exploring potential applications of the so-called “wonder material” for some time. In 2012, the chemicals company opened a Carbon Materials Innovation Center at its Ludwigshafen site in Germany. The center was set up in partnership with the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research (MPI-P), and the MPI-P and BASF have been jointly researching graphene since 2008.

EC information and networking event on organic electronics scheduled for Feb 2014

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The European Commission (EC), together with the Organic Electronics Association and Photonics 21, is organizing an “Information and networking event on organic electronics” to provide information on related calls in the Horizon 2020 ICT LEIT work programme (PDF download).

The event will be held on Friday 14 February 2014 in Brussels (Avenue de Beaulieu 25, Meeting Room 0/S1).

DRAFT Agenda

Continue reading →

MRS Fall 2013 highlights – part five (final)

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Graphene goes 3D

Switching from the talks to the exhibit, I just wanted to highlight something that I spotted over at the Graphene Labs booth. The firm has announced a spin-off dubbed Graphene 3D Labs, which provides spools of graphene-loaded polymer for use in commercial 3D printers.

In fact, it’s hard to escape 3D printing at the moment. A new Makerbot store opened this week on the walk from my hotel to the convention centre here in Boston.

Further reading on TMR+

MRS Fall 2013 highlights – part four
MRS Fall 2013 highlights – part three
MRS Fall 2013 highlights – part two
MRS Fall 2013 highlights – part one

MRS Fall 2013 highlights – part four

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In symposium K (Micro- and nanoscale processing of material for biomedical devices) Orlando Auciello, the current MRS president and founding scientist of Advanced Diamond Technologies, updated the audience on commercial applications of ultrananocrystalline diamond (UNCD) coatings.

UNCD coatings are of great interest in the biomedical sector as they protect implants from degrading inside the body, and their smooth surface and low co-efficient of friction makes them a good match for artificial knees and hips.

Another key factor is the low-deposition temperature (350 – 400 degC), which means that the processing steps don’t destroy CMOS devices. In other words, you can coat detector arrays with UNCD and it stops saline from reacting with the silicon and destroying the chip, which is a big deal for implants to the eye.

Building on this, Auciello showed some impressive work being carried out by the firm Second Sight, which uses UNCD to coat its artificial retina devices. Second Sight’s 270 electode product dubbed Argus II has been implanted in 31 previously blind patients from the US, UK, France, Switzerland and Mexico, who can now read large letters and identify objects thanks to the Second Sight apparatus.

Another materials system that could benefit the eye is magnetic nanoparticles, in this case by improving surgery for attaching retinas that have come away from the back of the eye. Auciello and his colleagues have shown that magnetic nanoparticles can be injected into the eye and then manipulated using a remote magnetic source to steer the retina into position.

Bringing industry back to the MRS

Further reading on TMR+

MRS Fall 2013 highlights – part five (final)
MRS Fall 2013 highlights – part three
MRS Fall 2013 highlights – part two
MRS Fall 2013 highlights – part one

MRS Fall 2013 highlights – part two

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My sketch of the roll-to-roll set-up proposed by the Mechanosynthesis group now based at MIT for high-throughput production of graphene.

My sketch of the roll-to-roll set-up proposed by the Mechanosynthesis group now based at MIT for high-throughput production of graphene.

A packed session on large-area graphene synthesis re-enforced the fact that there’s growing interest in making the material in amounts that push beyond lab-scale studies. On TMR+ this year, we’ve already featured a trio of commercial operations: Haydale in the UK, Graphene Nanochem, which has its production site in Malaysia, and – from the US – the University of Pennsylvania spin-out, Graphene Frontiers.

Graphene Frontiers has won a number of fans thanks to its roll-to-roll approach (see: roll-to-roll production could ramp up market opportunities for graphene), but they’re not the only ones exploring the concept.

A new twist on roll-to-roll production

Eric Polsen talked the audience through a concentric tube furnace design, which features an interesting twist on the roll-to-roll idea. Polsen is a member of the Mechanosynthesis group led by John Hart, who was previously at the University of Michigan and is now based at MIT.

As Polsen commented, roll-to-roll opens to the door to high-throughput production and has proven successful in delivering numerous materials, such as carbon fibre, in large quantities. He also acknowledged that they weren’t the first to look at how roll-to-roll techniques could be applied to graphene, citing studies by Hesjedal (2011) and Kobayashi (2013).

What does make the Mechanosynthesis team’s approach special though is the path that the copper foil (the substrate for CVD growth of graphene) takes from the feed spool through the tube furnance and into the collection chamber. The design features concentric tubes in which a carbon source (ethylene) is passed through the centre and the reducing agents (He/H2 are routed around the annulus. Wrapped around the inner tube is the copper tape, which can then travel through two distinct zones – first, an annealing zone, and then the growth zone, which is created as the carbon source enters through holes halfway along the inner tube.

Polsen explains that the tubular approach gives them much better control over vacuum conditions. The next step for the team is to ramp up the throughput via optimization of the synthesis recipe to acheive full coverage at speeds greater than 1 m/min.

Further reading on TMR+

MRS Fall 2013 highlights – part five (final)
MRS Fall 2013 highlights – part four
MRS Fall 2013 highlights – part three
MRS Fall 2013 highlights – part one

MRS Fall 2013 highlights – part one

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Advanced materials and structures for rechargable batteries is a key track at this year’s MRS Fall conference and drew a large audience from the start.

Bruce Dunn of UCLA opened the presentations by highlighting the potential of 2D forms of TiO2 and TiS2 for upgrading battery performance. He added that there was the possibility of integrating these materials with graphene in a one-step exfoliation step, which could open up device opportunities. Speaking with him after the session though, he was reluctant to make any predictions in terms of translation.

In fact, most of the researchers I met today weren’t keen on talking about when we could expect to see results coming through into the market, which given the number of hurdles that have to be overcome in taking an idea from the lab and turning it into a viable product, isn’t a complete surprise.

Ways of improving the cycling performance of batteries and capacitors remained the talking point both before and after the coffee break. Potential solutions here included deformation tolerant carbon nanotube sponges and a range of electrode designs featuring materials such as core-shell nanoparticles or hollow carbon fibres, which offer void space to accommodate any expansion of the device during operation, to stop cracks from forming.

Smart thinking on the menu
The discussion then moved on to crabs and rice, not because lunch had arrived, but because both crab shells and rice husks offer a readily available and low-cost source of nanoporous material, which could in principle be used as electrolyte supports.

Another way to tackle to problem of cracking in batteries is to develop structures that can heal themselves – an idea that Yi Cui and Zhenan Bao of Stanford University are following up through the addition of a polymer coating, which can re-form when broken, through hydrogen bonding.

Stay tuned for part two, when I promise I will have an update that ticks all of the boxes for translation.

Further reading on TMR+

MRS Fall 2013 highlights – part five (final)
MRS Fall 2013 highlights – part four
MRS Fall 2013 highlights – part three
MRS Fall 2013 highlights – part two

From lab to market: translational materials research high on the agenda at MRS Fall 2013

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Information station: IOP Publishing booth 114

Information station: IOP Publishing booth 114

Next week, TMR+ will be reporting from the MRS Fall meeting in Boston, US, so do bookmark the blog and check back from Monday (2 Dec) evening for daily highlights from the show.

Topics on the radar include – synthesis and energy storage properties of 2D materials; nanomaterials design for advanced rechargeable batteries; bio-inspired synthesis and assembly of functional materials; efficient, high-speed roll-to-roll CVD of graphene; and skutterudite materials (and modules) for automotive waste heat recovery.

But that’s just a taster, you can find the full programme at www.mrs.org/fall2013

Unlocking materials innovation
Organized by John Busbee (Xerion Advanced Battery Corporation), Alan Brown (ICStrategies), Jeffrey T. Glass (Duke University) and Patti Glaza (Arsenal Venture Partners) – Technology Innovation Forum VI is all about the art of translating materials science innovations into successful businesses.

The day-long event, which takes place on Wednesday (4 Dec), brings together industry leaders, venture capitalists (VCs) and developers to examine what it really takes to get ideas out of the lab and into the market.

Here, Matthew Nordan of VC firm Venrock will start the session by looking at ways to short-cut the long adoption cycles and high-capital requirements that can make the materials science sector a tough environment for start-ups.

Partnerships are one way of navigating around some of these obstacles, and Nordan’s opening talk is followed by a panel discussion looking at the ways that large and small companies can work together.

Production know-how
Another session not to be missed is – Transitioning new materials from lab to manufacturing – which explores how researchers can develop and find the expertise to scale-up their concepts to market volumes in a cost-effective manner. On hand with ideas and know-how will be Travis Earles (Lockheed Martin), Robert Kumpf (Plextronics), Susan Babinec (ARPA-E) and Manish Mehta (National center for manufacturing sciences).

Other highlights in the technology innovation forum programme include – “Perks and pitfalls”, “Resources and support”, “Roadmaps for early-stage entrepreneurship”, and an unvarnished look at the “Life and times of a serial entrepreneur”.

See you there.

And if you can’t make it to Boston, don’t forget that you can watch the live stream via MRS OnDemand.