Desktop Metal Buys Aerosint

Desktop Metal announced it has acquired Aerosint, a company in multi-material deposition systems for powder-based additive manufacturing (AM) solutions.

Aerosint offers a unique powder deposition system based on a digital process that selectively deposits two or more powders to form a single, thin powder layer containing multiple materials. The selective powder deposition technology enables full three-dimensional control of material placement during printing and can be integrated into any powder bed AM process, such as laser powder bed fusion, binder jetting, high-speed sintering or selective laser sintering. This multi-material approach to powder deposition is designed to support high-speed printing of a broad range of polymers, metals and ceramics.

In addition to reducing powder waste, material cost and post-processing time associated with single-material, commercially available powder bed AM processes, multi-material powder deposition can help realize more benefits at scale. Such benefits include localized optimization of mechanical properties, such as wear resistance or vibration dampening, and improved chemical and physical properties, such as thermal and electrical conductivity, corrosion resistance or aesthetics. Examples of applications for multi-material printing include:

• molds with conformal cooling channels optimized for heat dissipation;
• wear-resistant cutting tools with a hard exterior and ductile interior;
• conductive metal paths within polymer parts for flexible electronics; 
• bi-material luxury goods with superior aesthetics; and
• radiofrequency components with different dielectric and conductive properties.

“This transaction advances our strategy to own differentiated print technologies that enable an expanding set of AM 2.0 applications at scale,” says Ric Fulop, founder and CEO of Desktop Metal. “Today people print parts, but in the future, people will look to print full products, which may be composed of multiple materials.

"Industrializing Aerosint’s core technology and related powder processing systems will provide many benefits to the broad adoption of AM solutions,” Fulop says.

“At Aerosint, we believe the future of AM is going to be multi-material,” says Edouard Moens de Hase, co-founder and managing director of Aerosint. “We are thrilled to partner with Desktop Metal to accelerate the execution of this vision, now with access to its scale, distribution network, and industry-leading AM 2.0 technology portfolio.” 

Aerosint will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of Desktop Metal and continue to be led by its founders Edouard Moens de Hase and Matthias Hick, who will serve as managing director and innovation director of the Aerosint business, respectively. Aerosint multi-material products and services will continue to be widely available to the AM industry with integration into Desktop Metal platforms targeted within the next two years.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.