It is always enjoyable sitting down with people who have the same level of enthusiasm for a subject as you do. Such was my luck yesterday when I had the opportunity to discuss 3D printing’s future with two of the officers from BnK Chemical Corporation, a small Korean plastics company that has global ambitions.
BnK was founded in 2009 to provide polymer components for the Korean automotive and construction industries, but is now moving into the realm of 3D printing by tooling up to be one of the very first domestic FDM filament manufacturers in South Korea. Though they enjoy a business partner relationship with LG Chemical, they are an independent company charting their own course.
Relying on their experience experimenting and developing specialized polymers for industry, Young Soo Kim, Management Team Leader for the company, told me that he can see that there are several applications that 3D printing could be put to, but that new and innovative feedstocks are needed. He said that it is his company’s intent to explore this pioneering area and develop new ones, and to this end they recently opened a new research and development center.
“As 3D printing grows faster and faster, accelerated by the competition between foreign and domestic companies”, Mr. Kim said, “We want BnK to be a ‘solution provider’ in the 3D printing material field.”
Mr. Kim mentioned that the inspiration for one new material came to the BnK team from their experience working with the metal injection molding (MIM) process. MIM is basically standard plastic injection molding, but with a feedstock made of a mixture of metal powder and polymers, which is first molded, then sintered in a specialty kiln resulting in a structurally sound finished metal object. The process has its limitations, which ironically, sparked an idea.
BnK’s research team is now busy at work developing a new type of filament that is a combination of highly refined metal powders and polymers. This filament would be intended to be used in an FDM-type 3D printer, resulting in printed metal objects. There are also plans for a powered feedstock of this type for use in SLS machines as well.
According to Dr. Jin Cheon Kim, a researcher at Ulsan University who is working with BnK on this project, “We are focusing on the syntheses and evaluation of nanometal-polymer composites using some unique processes, such as the electrical explosion of wire and mechanical alloying, to create new materials.”
What will be the end result? Will we be able to FDM print metal object ready for use right out of the printer? No one knows yet, but don’t bet against it. Each time someone predicted that some operation or technique in 3D printing was impossible, someone else eventually figured out a way of doing it…and that will probably continue.
