3D Printing Trends in the Plastics Industry

3D printing is set to create a difference in our world for multiple reasons.  Els van de Ven, Event Manager at Mikrocentrum, speaks out at the starting eve of the Kunststoffenbeurs about sustainability and circularity. Those, among other themes, will be among the highlights during the plastics event (“Kunststoffenbeurs”) in Den Bosch, Netherlands.

At the leading Benelux tradeshow for the plastics industry, five actual trends will be recognizable: sustainability, reshoring & automation, shortages, circular economies &smart materials and, 3D printing. Those are the topics that dominate todays industry. In a blogpost at the event website, Els van de Ven particularly names 3D printing as one out of the five most impactful trends in the overal plastics industry. Els van de Ven expects 3D printing to take a prominent role in the industry. Sustainability and circularity certainly benefit this development.

Luximprint at Kunststoffen 2021

Luximprint is named as one of the exhibitors from the 3D printing industry at Kunststoffen 2021. Els van de Ven mentions in her blogpost:

As we speak, 3D printing is still overruled by conventional fabrication methodologies such as injection molding, extrusion or vacuum forming, but is expected to take over in the near future a larger portion of the market. For example, 3D printing enables rapid prototyping of parts without the need for expensive tooling.
Additionally, it is quite interesting to fabricate complicated materials. Moreover, 3D printing is a circular approach, there will be no more material used than required for the job, so material waste is zero. Before this trend can be fully utilized and be adhered to the circular economy, however, the use of recycled or biobased materials might be required.

Image showing storyline of 3D print magazine article about rapid prototyping custom optics by Luximprint

Direct CAD-to-Optic thanks to 3D Printing

The possibilities are near to unlimited. During the Kunststoffenbeurs event, Marco de Visser from Luximprint, will explain the direct CAD-to-Optic strategy for custom optics fabrication, as implemented by this Dutch start-up. Optical lenses can be printed to demand, with no minimum order quantities required (in fact, the MOQ = 1). This illustrates one of the benefits of optical 3D printing, just one of the many other benefits the inventive additive approaches may offer for the industry as a whole.

You can read the full article on the blog of 3D Print Magazine.