3D printing - Materials

With in-mold electronics (IME) company, Kronos Mechatronics, having won the LOPEC 2026 Startup Award for Best Business Potential, the hype for printed electronic technologies can continue to flourish. This article covers IDTechEx's visit to LOPEC 2026 in Munich, exploring the use of IME within automotives.

3D printing as an industry is seeing increased attention for its versatility and convenience. This article covers metal additive manufacturing and the scope for its diversity and flexibility within the sector.

Metal additive manufacturing specifically boasts increased benefits when compared to other material feedstocks in 3D printing, including freedom of design, local manufacturing, cost savings, and reduced manufacturing times. This article covers some of the outlooks for the market including key trends and forecasts.

As of mid-2022, the global graphene and graphene oxide installed capacity easily exceeds 12,000 tonnes per year, but utilization is low as the orders lag significantly behind. Is this a natural part of the commercial journey, or has hype overcome reality? Is this a case of "build it, they will come", or are there real market needs? What does the future hold for these graphene manufacturers? IDTechEx provides an independent perspective on these questions and more.

Electric vehicle battery packs have increasing requirements concerning their thermal runaway mitigation strategy. Meanwhile, the aerogel industry is overly dependent on oil & gas and in need of diversification. Could this be the perfect match between a problem looking for a solution and a solution looking for a problem?

Global awareness of climate change and pollution is increasing, but finding ways to halt our dependence on fossil fuels and plastics is proving extremely difficult. One possible solution is to shift away from petrochemicals towards a biobased feedstock to make plastics, but how realistic is this proposal? IDTechEx uncovers the factors influencing adoption of biobased polymers in their report, "Biobased Polymers 2018-2023: A Technology and Market Perspective".

The metal 3D printing market will be worth $19B in 2029 as forecast by IDTechEx Research in their latest report on the topic, covering 3D printing of metals technology and market analysis.

Advancements in material science and material processing will always play a central role in any technological progression. IDTechEx has been providing leading market analysis on a broad range of advanced materials and their technology analysts have given their pick of the key news stories from 2018.

The range of available materials is one of the key hurdles to adoption for industrial 3D printing. 3D printing is being rapidly adopted by product manufacturers all around the world, but it still can't compete with many other manufacturing techniques with respect to material diversity.