Sustainable Materials

AM Summit 2022 breakout session: Sustainable materials focused on how we can decarbonize the supply chain by choosing and developing more sustainable materials. Additive Manufacturing is widely recognized to include a range of sustainable benefits such as less transport and less material waste. Anyhow, if the goods produced by Additive Manufacturing are not made from the most sustainable materials, we are not harvesting the optimal benefits of the technology. In this session, we focused on how to choose and design new materials in order to reach our sustainable goals.

The session was moderated by Ditte Lysgaard Vind, managing partner in Lendager. The panel participants were:

• Adrien Lapeyre, Global Market Manager, Arkema
• Markus Glasser, Senior Vice President EMEA, EOS
• Rasmus Kock Grusgaard, Innovation Consultant, The Danish Plastics Federation
• Niels Appel, Project Manager, Nordic Metals

Is bio-circular material going to be the new impact-material?

Both Arkema and EOS presented their view on how PA11 made from castor bean is having tremendous positive effect. PA11 has a low environmental impact, consumes less non-renewable resources to be produced, and has high thermal resistance. The material is used as powder in 3D printing production. Besides the benefits in the production, the material is also highly recyclable.

Traditionally, plastic is produced using crude oil. By rethinking the way, we produce plastic, we can both decrease the pollution from the production process while also stop the use of natural resources like oil. As castor bean is produced in otherwise non-growable areas, the production gives new opportunities for farmers in these areas. Castor beans for PA11 is most often grown in India on fields, that are not used otherwise giving social benefits as well.

It is not only how we produce goods, but also how we think about consuming them!

A great area of discussion was also how we go from a linear system to circular system. Nordic Metals gather scrap metal and turns it into new metal powder usable for 3D printing. A characteristic of metal as a material is that it does not degrade over time like plastic. By that, it is theoretically possible to recycle metal scrap repeatedly. Metal production is highly polluting as it is today, but by recycling it in a smart way, we can mitigate the pollution from production and stop the use of natural resources. According to a study from DTU, Nordic Metal’s way of producing metal powder is having a 50 % less impact on global warming than the traditional way of doing it.