With China's special TPU and PMMA material giant YTWH Chemical Technology Group launching 3D printing PP powder materials, YTWH's PP materials will enter a brand new application area-3D printing.
The materials used in the SLS 3D printing process are: powder materials such as wax powder, plastic powder, ceramic powder, and metal powder. Among them, commonly used plastic powders include: PA, TPU, PLA, ABS, PEEK, PCL, etc.
Polypropylene (PP), as one of the five general-purpose polymer materials, has the advantages of small density, high strength, heat resistance, good insulation, stable chemical properties and low price. It has great application potential in the field of 3D printing.
However, PP shrinks greatly during the melting and crystallization process. Macroscopically, the volume shrinkage of the part is very large, which causes PP to be warped and deformed during the SLS process, and the molding accuracy of the product is poor; Low and easily damaged. In addition, due to the tertiary carbon atoms in the PP molecular structure, PP powder is easily decomposed during the laser sintering process and cannot be reused many times. The above factors make PP difficult to promote in SLS.
3. PP squeeze 3D printing materials
For the SLS process, in addition to the widely promoted TPU and PA powder materials, YTWH has recently launched PP powder materials. The PP powder has the characteristics of high sphericity, moderate particle size and narrow particle size distribution. In addition, the powder has high fluidity and the powder bed is flat and smooth, giving SLS printing good printing accuracy.
The PP powder material adopts YTWH's custom-developed material formula, which can effectively solve the problem of warpage and deformation during SLS printing, with high printing accuracy; the elongation at break of the product can reach 20%, and the toughness is good. In addition, the special additive combination makes the PP powder have excellent thermal stability and can be recycled for many times, which greatly reduces printing costs.
4. The prosperity of 3D printing technology will promote the development of high-end polyolefins
According to Wohlers statistics, after nearly ten years of rapid development, the global 3D printing market reached USD 7.3 billion in 2017, and IDC predicts that the global output value will reach USD 28.9 billion in 2020. It is foreseeable that in the next ten years, the global additive manufacturing industry will still be in a period of rapid growth, with huge development potential.
At present, China's 3D printing has matured and the market has grown rapidly. In 2017, the scale of China's additive manufacturing industry has exceeded 10 billion yuan, and the Prospective Industry Research Institute predicts that China's 3D printing market will reach about 50 billion yuan in 2022.
Since 3D printing manufacturing technology has completely changed the methods and principles of the traditional manufacturing industry, it is a subversion of the traditional manufacturing model. Therefore, 3D printing materials have become the main bottleneck restricting the development of 3D printing, and also the key and difficult points of 3D printing breakthrough innovation Only by developing more new materials can the application field of 3D printing technology be expanded.
With the further development of 3D printing technology, the performance of traditional plastics will be greatly improved, relying on the powerful rapid fused deposition and low temperature bonding characteristics of plastics will be widely used in the field of 3D printing manufacturing.
For polyolefin materials, this field is not to be missed. YTWH's latest PP powder material can be said to be a good start. In addition, it also launched a series of material solutions for different 3D printing processes: TPU wire, TPU powder, PA nylon powder, UV (photosensitive resin) PP powder, etc.