Market analysis Protolabs CEO analyzes the future of plastic 3D printing

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Plastics are indispensable in manufacturing. And they will become even more important, especially when considering additive manufacturing, says Daniel Cohn, Managing Director of Protolabs Germany.

Structures against which even ants appear as giants, translucent components that reveal liquid levels, or durable, hardened lightweight elements for use in automotive exhaust transportation—the list of applications for additively manufactured components is virtually endless. Once dismissed as an odd fringe phenomenon, 3D printing has now evolved into a true mass phenomenon that has reached practically every industry and managed to turn some ideas on their heads while making the impossible possible.

Plastics play a central role in 3D printing

What many are not aware of is the central role plastics play in this. For each of the aforementioned examples, there are real applications where plastics are used and are sometimes far superior to other materials like metals. This is just a tiny selection of potential sectors, industries, and fields where 3D printing can make a decisive difference—and will increasingly do so in the future. Additive manufacturing—and this should be beyond dispute—is one of the future technologies that combine innovative power and nearly limitless potential, with plastics—whether currently available polymers or future ones—being the source of their strength.

Additive manufacturing creates unprecedented designs

Those who have thoroughly explored the possibilities of additive manufacturing know that a wide variety of processes exist, especially in the plastics sector, each tailored specifically to the respective plastic. While metal 3D printing always focuses on a specific alloy that exists as a powder and must be melted using a laser, additive manufacturing with plastics can involve curing resins, fusing polymer powders, and bonding elastomers through liquid photopolymers. Even oxygen-permeable optics and programmable liquid resins are used to fulfill desires and create unprecedented structures with designs that would be unachievable with classical methods.

Plastics make 3D printing extremely flexible

Additive manufacturing with plastics is a cross-industry opportunity to realize the unprecedented. It allows for sustainable operations, partly due to the recyclability of many polymers. At the same time, combined with the unique capabilities of 3D printing, it represents a paradigm shift for the realization of ideas and innovations. Because the layer-by-layer construction common to all additive processes allows for the creation of internal channels and tunnels, the realization of threads and overhangs of all kinds, and the diverse plastics boast a variety of physical and optical properties that, through post-processing, can make them indistinguishable from metals, the possibilities of this combination are almost limitless. But that's not all, as new developments and market launches are shaping the current discussion around 3D printing with plastics—and rightly so.