Additive manufacturing (AM), commonly referred to as ‘3D printing’, allows the tool-free and formless production of complex structures. Especially beam- and powder-based methods are promising. However, the current choice of commercially available powder materials is very limited.
We develop top-down processes (wet comminution, melt emulsification) for production of powder materials for AM. Moreover, functionalization methods like rounding of irregular shaped particles in a heated downer reactor and dry coating are applied to increase the flowability. Plasma treatment and atomic layer deposition (ALD) as well as chemical vapor deposition (CVD) are applied to tailor the surface chemistry of AM materials.
