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DURACON polymer with 30% recycled content

Daicel Corporation's High Performance Polymers SBU has launched four new DURACON^® POM grades featuring 30% post-consumer recycled (PCR) content. Unveiled at CHINAPLAS 2026, the lineup includes Standard, Low VOC, Sliding, and Tough options. Leveraging advanced compounding expertise, Daicel maintains quality and mechanical performance comparable to standard virgin resin grades for demanding global industrial and automotive components.
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Radio Flyer cuts ebike prototype time radically with Fuse X1 large-format SLS 3D printer

Radio Flyer cut prototype lead times for its Flyer Loop cargo ebike frame from two months to two days using Formlabs' new Fuse X1 SLS large-format 3D printer. "We can now print an entire Flyer Loop cargo ebike overnight and be gluing it together the next day," said Agostino LoBello, product development engineer at Radio Flyer. "I can iterate three times as often with nine times less labor." The Fuse X1 delivers production-quality parts with 50% lower costs and triple the throughput of comparable industrial systems, featuring automated powder handling and a compact, easy-to-install design. [Credit: Image courtesy of Formlabs]
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Compact industrial sand 3D printer

ExOne has launched the S-Print Pro, a compact industrial sand 3D printer that brings production-grade binder jetting to smaller foundries, pattern shops, and print service providers. Aimed at businesses competing on cost and flexibility, it handles low-volume casting, spare parts, and custom components. The system processes furan binder with silica sand, CeraBeads, or silicon carbide.
Learn more about this capable machine.

Fast-cure composite for aero and defense manufacturing

Toray Composite Materials America has launched 3960-FC, a fast-cure variant of its high-performance 3960 prepreg system for mission-critical aerospace and defense applications. This material reduces cure time by up to 45% while maintaining proven mechanical performance, stiffness, and exceptional toughness. It is highly compatible with automated manufacturing technologies like AFP and ATL, as well as traditional processing methods.
Learn more.

Metal finishing: With rising carbide prices, when cermet makes sense

As critical raw material access tightens, manufacturers are rethinking cutting tool usage. While essential, carbide is often unnecessary for finishing processes. Cermet -- a ceramic-metal composite -- offers an excellent alternative, delivering exceptional fracture and wear resistance for these specific machining stages.
Read the full article.

Full-color 3D-printing Design Guide from Xometry

With Xometry's PolyJet 3D-printing service, you can order full-color 3D prints easily. Their no-cost design guide will help you learn about different aspects of 3D printing colorful parts, how to create and add color to your models, and best practices to keep in mind when printing in full color. Learn how to take full advantage of the 600,000 unique colors available in this flexible additive process.
Get the Xometry guide.

Next-gen SLA materials rival traditional thermoplastics

Formlabs has announced two new SLA materials that bring 3D printing significantly closer to being a manufacturing method for end-use part production. Tough 1000 Resin and a significantly improved Tough 2000 Resin join Tough 1500 Resin, forming the new Tough Resin family. These resilient engineering materials stand up to harsh environments, impact, and repeated wear, all while delivering a dark, matte surface finish with crisp details when printed on Form 4 Series 3D printers.
Learn more.

Surface inspection: From Army depot to factory floor

Born from U.S. Army requirements for rotorcraft inspection, the GelSight Modulus 3D surface measurement system has surpassed 100 units sold to commercial and Department of Defense customers. The handheld, micron-scale tool with interchangeable probe tips delivers fast, high-res measurements in places traditional tools can't reach.
Read the full article.

What is Cold Metal Fusion?

Cold Metal Fusion is an open industry standard for sinter-based metal additive manufacturing. It combines polymer SLS design freedom with reliable debinding and sintering workflows, enabling complex geometries, lightweighting, lattice structures, conformal cooling channels, and high-precision metal parts with predictable shrink behavior. Now available from TriMech Group, this process offers a faster, cost-effective way to produce strong, high-performance metal parts.
Learn more from TriMech Group.

Metal 3D printing: EOS adds four new materials

Industrial 3D-printing supplier EOS has added four new metal additive manufacturing materials to its portfolio: an iron-nickel alloy that boasts stability under fluctuating temps, a nickel alloy with high strength and extreme corrosion resistance, a low-alloyed steel prized for its high toughness and strength, and an industrial-grade stainless steel. Each has been optimized for EOS Laser Powder Bed Fusion systems.
Get all the details.

New materials and finishes from Quickparts

Quickparts has introduced DuraKor, ThermaKor, and vapor smoothing to expand its production-capable materials and finishing portfolio. The new plastics provide polypropylene-like toughness, chemical resistance, and high-temperature stability, while vapor smoothing improves sealing and surface quality. Together, these capabilities help engineers validate designs, refine performance, and transition efficiently from prototypes to scalable manufacturing.
Learn more.

What's the latest in SLA 3D printing?

Learn about the latest offerings in SLA printing from 3D Systems, including the introduction of SLA 825 Dual, the company's most advanced large-frame Stereolithography printer. Other new products include ArrayCast investment casting software that allows users to effortlessly create customized casting trees (complete with configurable runners, sprues, and end effectors), Accura SbF (the latest SLA casting resin), and Accura Xtreme Black (which delivers low shrinkage, large, functional SLA prototype parts with sharp detail).
Learn about all the new 3D Systems products.

meviy cuts CNC milling lead times to just 4 days

meviy, the on-demand custom parts manufacturing service developed by MISUMI Group, has upgraded its Expedite+ service with improved lead times for CNC Milled parts. Customers can now have their parts shipped in as few as four days through meviy's fastest delivery option. The enhanced service helps manufacturers and engineers stay on schedule when projects are behind or production is interrupted. Supported materials include steels and aluminums. Check out their instant quoting too.
Learn more.

Top Tech Tip: How do you 3D print STL files?

Learn the basics of 3D printing STL files -- the files that serve as the digital foundation for 3D printing -- and a whole lot more from the experts at Xometry. These files have advantages, of course, but did you know they have disadvantages too? Also learn about STL tools and programs, and how to reduce file size or even repair a file you are having trouble with.
Read the Xometry article.

When metals can't survive: Machined ceramics as an alternative

Technical Ceramics are so hard and wear resistant that they cannot be machined with conventional tools -- but they can outlast and outperform other materials in demanding or harsh applications. INSACO's proprietary diamond grinding process and specialized techniques developed over many decades allow the company to produce and document parts to exacting specifications consistently. Learn all about the alternatives you have when metals just can't take it.
Read the INSACO article.

World's whitest paint now thinner than ever -- ideal for vehicles

Xiulin Ruan, a Purdue University professor of mechanical engineering, holds up his lab's sample of the whitest paint on record (original formula). [Credit: Purdue University/Jared Pike]

 

 

 

 

The world's whitest paint, seen in this year's edition of Guinness World Records, keeps surfaces so cool it could reduce the need for air conditioning in some cases. Now, the Purdue University researchers who created the paint have developed a new formulation that is thinner and lighter -- ideal for radiating heat away from cars, trains, and airplanes.

The researchers believe this white may be the closest equivalent of the blackest black, "Vantablack," which absorbs up to 99.9% of visible light.

"I've been contacted by everyone from spacecraft manufacturers to architects to companies that make clothes and shoes," said Xiulin Ruan, a Purdue professor of mechanical engineering and developer of the paint. "They mostly had two questions: Where can I buy it, and can you make it thinner?"

The original world's whitest paint used nanoparticles of barium sulfate to reflect 98.1% of sunlight, cooling outdoor surfaces more than 4.5°C below ambient temperature. Cover your roof in that paint, and you could essentially cool your home with much less air conditioning, but there's a problem.

"To achieve this level of radiative cooling below the ambient temperature, we had to apply a layer of paint at least 400 microns thick," Ruan said. "That's fine if you're painting a robust stationary structure, like the roof of a building. But in applications that have precise size and weight requirements, the paint needs to be thinner and lighter."

That's why Ruan's team began experimenting with other materials, pushing the limit of materials' capability to scatter sunlight. Their latest formulation is a nanoporous paint incorporating hexagonal boron nitride as the pigment, a substance mostly used in lubricants. This new paint achieves nearly the same benchmark of solar reflectance (97.9%) with just a single 150-micron layer of paint.

Their research has been published in Cell Reports Physical Science.

The previous iteration of the world's whitest paint (left) required a layer 0.4-mm thick to achieve sub-ambient radiant cooling. The new formulation can achieve similar cooling with a layer just 0.15-mm thick -- thin and light enough for its radiant cooling effects to be applied to vehicles. [Credit: Purdue University photo/Andrea Felicelli]

 

 

 

 

"Hexagonal boron nitride has a high refractive index, which leads to strong scattering of sunlight," said Andrea Felicelli, a Purdue PhD student in mechanical engineering who worked on the project. "The particles of this material also have a unique morphology, which we call nanoplatelets."

Ioanna Katsamba, another PhD student in mechanical engineering at Purdue, ran computer simulations to understand if the nanoplatelet morphology offers any benefits. "The models showed us that the nanoplatelets are more effective in bouncing back the solar radiation than spherical nanoparticles used in previous cooling paints," Katsamba said.

The paint also incorporates voids of air, which make it highly porous on a nanoscale. This lower density, together with the thinness, provides another huge benefit: reduced weight. The newer paint weighs 80% less than barium sulfate paint yet achieves nearly identical solar reflectance.

"This light weight opens the doors to all kinds of applications," said George Chiu, a Purdue professor of mechanical engineering and an expert in inkjet printing. "Now this paint has the potential to cool the exteriors of airplanes, cars, or trains. An airplane sitting on the tarmac on a hot summer day won't have to run its air conditioning as hard to cool the inside, saving large amounts of energy. Spacecraft also have to be as light as possible, and this paint can be a part of that."

As to that other big question -- where can I buy the paint? -- Ruan said, "We are in discussions right now to commercialize it. There are still a few issues that need to be addressed, but progress is being made."

Either way, these Purdue researchers look forward to what the paint could accomplish. "Using this paint will help cool surfaces and greatly reduce the need for air conditioning," Ruan said. "This not only saves money, but it reduces energy usage, which in turn reduces greenhouse gas emissions. And unlike other cooling methods, this paint radiates all the heat into deep space, which also directly cools down our planet. It's pretty amazing that a paint can do all that."

Patent applications for the paint formulation have been filed through the Purdue Research Foundation Office of Technology Commercialization. For further discussion on this intellectual property, contact Will Buchanan at wdbuchanan@prf.org and reference code 2022-RUAN-69542.

Source: Purdue University

Published October 2022

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