Kodak and Carbon to develop new offerings for additive manufacturing
Kodak has signed a joint development agreement with Carbon3D to work together on materials development to address new opportunities for Carbon’s innovative Continuous Liquid Interface Production (CLIP) technology.
According to Carbon, CLIP eliminates the shortcomings of conventional 3D printing by using a tunable photochemical process to rapidly transform 3D models into physical objects. CLIP works by carefully balancing the interaction of light and oxygen to grow parts with excellent mechanical properties, resolution, and surface finish.
The joint development agreement aligns Carbon’s breakthrough material development capabilities with Kodak’s long-standing experience in material formulation and integration into complex systems to drive continued innovation of novel materials.
“Current 3D printing technology has failed to deliver on its promise to revolutionize manufacturing,” said Dr. Joseph DeSimone, CEO and Co-Founder, Carbon3D. “Our CLIP technology offers the game-changing speed, consistent mechanical properties and choice of materials required for complex commercial quality parts. We are excited to have Kodak as a partner as we continue to bring our technology to an array of industries including automotive, aerospace, athletic shoes and life sciences. This collaboration further proves our dedication to the development of breakthrough additive materials.”
“Together, Carbon and Kodak are well positioned to develop and expand market opportunities for CLIP-based additive manufacturing,” said Kodak CEO Jeff Clarke. “Kodak is a world leader in materials development and we are excited to be working with an innovative and progressive company like Carbon.”
How CLIP works
Traditional 3D printing requires a number of mechanical steps, repeated over and over again in a layer-by-layer approach. Existing 3D printing, or additive manufacturing, technology is really just 2D printing, over and over again. As a result, 3D printed parts take many hours, even days, to produce and are mechanically weak due to their shale-like layers.
CLIP is a chemical process that carefully balances light and oxygen to eliminate the mechanical steps and the layers. Using a tunable photochemical process instead of the traditional mechanical approach, CLIP eliminates these shortcomings to rapidly transform 3D models into physical objects. By carefully balancing the interaction of UV light, which triggers photopolymerization, and oxygen, which inhibits the reaction, CLIP continuously grows objects from a pool of resin at speeds 25-100 times faster than traditional 3D printing.
At the heart of the CLIP process is a special window that is transparent to light and permeable to oxygen, much like a contact lens. By controlling the oxygen flux through the window, CLIP creates a “dead zone” in the resin pool just tens of microns thick (about 2-3 diameters of a red blood cell) where photopolymerization cannot occur.
As a series of cross-sectional images of a 3D model is played like a movie into the resin pool from underneath, the physical object emerges continuously from just above the dead zone. Conventionally made 3D printed parts are notorious for having mechanical properties that vary depending on the direction the parts were printed because of the layer-by-layer approach. Much more like injection-molded parts, CLIP produces consistent and predictable mechanical properties, smooth on the outside and solid on the inside.
