6K Additive
Titanium UniMelt System in 6K Additive's Burgettstown, PA facility.
Titanium UniMelt System in 6K Additive's Burgettstown, PA facility.
6K Additive has announced a strategic additive manufacturing (AM) powder supply agreement and recycling partnership with Incodema3D, a company based in Freeville, NY.
6K Additive provides sustainable production of engineered materials for additive manufacturing and lithium-ion batteries with its UniMelt plasma technology.
Incodema3D says that it has seen increased demand and larger volume orders, predominantly from aerospace and defence customers, and sought to secure a domestic AM metal powder supply to meet strict quality standards and a solution for recycling its used powder and parts.
Through 6K Additive’s UniMelt plasma microwave powder production system, the company is able to provide high volumes of domestically manufactured powder and a route to sustainably recycle Incodema3D’s used metals through its Powder Buy Back program.
Incodema3D director of additive manufacturing and metrology operations Kevin Engel said: “We are talking to clients now about projects for 2023 that will require ten tons of metal powder per month. When you’re going through that volume of powder, recycling becomes imperative, and sustainability is key to our business.”
Engel continued: “By recycling our used powder with 6K Additive we have been able to drive down our contribution costs for material by 15% already. Add to it the quality standards both Incodema3D and our customers demand sets a high bar for any one supplier. 6K Additive overachieved on this front.”
6K recently released results from an LCA study conducted by Foresight Management comparing the environmental impact of 6K’s UniMelt microwave plasma technology to current atomisation technologies to produce metal powders. According to the company, the results showed a 91% reduction in energy use and a 91.5% reduction in carbon emissions.
Incodema3D undertook its own pre-qualification of 6K Additive’s nickel alloy 625 (Ni625), a high-strength and corrosion-resistant alloy, popular with many of its customer’s applications. 6K stats that the Ni625 surpassed every measure used in the assessment, including tensile strength, yield strength and elongation at break.
“We tested five samples and each one returned density results of 99.9%, which far exceeds the minimum requirement. Anything over 99.5% density in additive manufacturing is a good part,” added Engel.
