XJet Ltd., a provider of ground-breaking metal and ceramic additive manufacturing technologies and solutions, announced the commercial availability of alumina technical ceramic adding to its portfolio of additive manufacturing materials. Alumina (aluminum oxide) was chosen for development because of its wide use as a technical ceramic and the evident market demand to see parts produced with the benefits of XJet NanoParticle Jetting™ (NPJ) production.
The Alumina technical ceramic material has been successfully tested over the course of a few months by a global customer in the USA. In conjunction with rigorous dialogue and testing with the industry, the decision to introduce alumina into the XJet repertoire fits the business’ desire to bring on the benefits of AM into the world of ceramics.
“As alumina is the most widely used technical ceramic, and the most cost-effective, it made perfect sense to introduce that as our second ceramic material after zirconia.”
– Dror Danai, CBO, XJet
Alumina Technical Ceramic Material
Offering extremely high mechanical strength, high hardness as well as very good electrical insulation, alumina also has high wear resistance, high thermal conductivity and resistance to high temperatures. Both alumina and zirconia are technical ceramics with very good resistance to chemicals (non-corrosive), are great insulators and are very hard materials. As such they are hard to machine using traditional methods such as CNC, especially after they have been sintered into shape.
Now with XJet additive manufacturing (AM) systems, this limitation is lifted and manufacturers can capitalize on the benefits of additive manufacturing, creating parts with complex geometries and internal cavities that were not previously possible with traditional ceramic manufacturing technologies. XJet NanoParticle Jetting technology with its use of soluble support material can manufacture extremely accurate near-net-shape parts with ultra-fine detail and smooth surfaces.
Danai added, “We are pleased to bring this extremely useful and valuable technical ceramic material to market, adding to our dynamic AM portfolio. New materials open up new avenues for our existing, as well as prospective customers and serve to enhance their business opportunities.”
Designers and manufacturers can see samples of parts made with XJet’s alumina material at several upcoming ceramics and AM shows: Ceramics Expo (Cleveland August 31st to September 1st), Rapid +TCT (Chicago, September 13th to 15th) and Formnext (Frankfurt, November 16th to 19th).
About Manufactur3D Magazine: Manufactur3D is an online magazine on 3D Printing. Visit our Tech News page for more updates on Global 3D Printing News. To stay up-to-date about the latest happenings in the 3D printing world, like us on Facebook or follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.
