McGill, Equispheres demonstrate feasibility of aluminum alloy powders for sintering with binder jet tech

A guest on a tour of Equispheres’ headquarters in Ottawa, Ontario compares metal powder samples.

Equispheres, a materials science technology company focused on additive manufacturing applications, in partnership with McGill University, have partnered o determine if binder jet printer technology was able to sinter aluminum alloys, which up until this point, it was incapable. After extensive research, the duo determined Equispheres’ aluminum alloy powders could be used for sintering with binder jet technology.

These findings have major implications for the automotive industry as aluminum alloys represent over 30 per cent of the overall material demand in this space.

Binder jet printers are 100 times faster than traditional laser-based additive manufacturing (AM) printers and could enable AM to be used in mass production.

The specifics of the findings are:

  • Compaction-free, sub-solidus sintering of Equispheres’ standard AlSi10Mg aluminum alloy powder 
  • Good densification (>95 per cent) and excellent microstructure 

Equispheres is presently working with key partners on the development of specialized binder agents required for aluminum and for specific automotive applications.