On November 15 Arkema inaugurated, in the presence of Thierry Le Hénaff, the Group’s Chairman and CEO, and Hervé Morin, President of the Normandy Region, a new Global Center of Excellence for 3D printing within its Cerdato Research & Development Center in Serquigny, Normandy (France). Arkema and the Normandy Region intend this new center of excellence dedicated to additive manufacturing based on high-performance polymers, to be of benefit to companies and training organizations in the region, as part of a collaborative initiative striving for swift adoption of these new production methods.
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Today, Arkema is a leader in high-performance polymer-based 3D printing. Ideally placed to make 3D printing accessible to large-scale manufacturing thanks to a unique offering of high-performance materials and services, the Group has developed renowned expertise in applications and end-uses to support its customers around the world in this genuine industrial revolution. The Group continues developing new custom-made materials that fulfill customer needs, through collaborative research with the additive manufacturing market leaders.
In Serquigny, in the Group’s largest research laboratory dedicated to advanced materials, Arkema has decided to open, in partnership with the Normandy Region, a new Global Center of Excellence for 3D printing by powder bed fusion. This new center houses collaborative areas and latest generation printers. It also benefits from all the product design and analysis resources available at the Cerdato.
This new platform dedicated to additive manufacturing will help address a dual objective:
• Offer collaborative space for the center’s research teams and a space for developing innovative products on commercial printers from HP, EOS and Prodways, allowing our partners to convert new applications to 3D printing.
• Be part of an ecosystem of local industries and training organizations by offering various forms of partnerships, e.g. technical or economic feasibility studies into the additive manufacturing of industrial parts, and demonstrations at awareness sessions on these new forms of part production.
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This new 3D printing Global Center of Excellence will support the accelerating development of this technology as an industrial manufacturing method. Dedicated to printing by powder bed fusion, the center complements the Group’s existing network, which comprises a center based in Exton (Pennsylvania, US) for photocure liquid resins inaugurated in 2018, and another in King of Prussia (Pennsylvania, US) for filament extrusion.
Inaugurated on Friday November 15 in the presence of Thierry Le Hénaff, Arkema’s Chairman and CEO, and Hervé Morin, President of the Normandy Region, as well as many customers and local representatives, this laboratory underscores Arkema’s commitment to 3D printing, an attractive growth driver for the Group.
It will help open up new prospects by providing market players with its range of solutions and expertise, from identifying the needs right up to industrialization. Arkema’s investments in 3D printing innovation represent several tens of millions of euros per year.
