New research advances liquid metal 3D printing,

“10x faster at 1/10th cost”
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Aluminum has a fascinating history, yet 3D printing with the material has proved problematic.

Guests of Napoleon III could expect to eat from gold or silver plates, while aluminum was reserved for Emperor and later President of France. Aluminum’s prohibitive cost of production was also deemed to make it suitable for crowning the Washington Monument.

Once the Bayer and Hall-Herout processes for the industrial scale production of aluminum were perfected, the cost tumbled and now the metal is one of the most common on the planet – with a price to match.

The majority of metal additive manufacturing technologies work with expensive spherical metal powders, one of the reasons why metal 3D printing remains beyond the reach of many enterprises. While efforts are underway to lower the cost of metal additive manufacturing, 2017 has seen a number of challenges to the status quo.

Research from the the State University of New York, Buffalo and, Concordia University, Montreal looks at improving a novel additive manufacturing method called liquid metal 3D printing – a process that can work with aluminum and other metals.