The Virtual Foundry has a proprietary process for extruding metal, glass or ceramic powder with a thermoplastic binder into continuous filament suitable for use in fused filament 3D printers. Once an object is printed with this hybrid material, sintering removes the plastic binder. This process produces an object of consistently high purity – up to 98% of the base material. The Virtual Foundry announced it received a patent for this proprietary process.

The benefit of this process is that it enables the filament to be used on inexpensive FFF equipment, lowering the barrier to entry for manufacturers who want to experiment with metal additive manufacturing.

“Together, our hybrid filaments, FFF printers and sintering ovens represent a more affordable, open-source platform for metal additive manufacturing,” said Bradley Woods, founder of The Virtual Foundry. “We believe these products will impact on every category of manufacturing, from aerospace and medical to general foundry and tooling applications,” he adds.

The Virtual Foundry
www.thevirtualfoundry.com