Binder Jetting
Process description
The Binder Jetting process is very similar to that of powder bed fusion, except it uses a chemical binder to bond material together instead of melting the material together. In this process, a layer of a powder material is placed onto the whole print bed, a liquid binder is placed on the needed material, and then another layer of powder is layered on top. After the process is complete, the part is left in the powder bed to let the binder fully cure and then cleaned of excess powder.
Strengths & Weaknesses
Strengths
- Low energy: Since it requires no melting, this is a very low energy printing technique when compared to other methods.
- Material flexibility: Binder jetting has a large number of available materials.
- Scalable: The print head delivers very little binder in relation to the volume of the final part, enabling the production of a large variety of sized parts.
- No need for supports: Similar to powder bed fusion, the excess powder acts as natural supports.
Weaknesses
- Material properties: Binder jetting parts tend to be weaker then other AM types.
- Surface finish: The surface finish is entirely dependent on the powder material used, and has a wide range of finishes.
- Post processing: To improve the material properties, extensive post processing is sometimes needed. This can involve injecting extra binder, more cure time, or metal sintering.
| Low | High | |
|---|---|---|
| Volume X/Y/Z (mm) | 254/381/203 | 800/500/400 |
| Resolution (mm) | .5 | .03 |
| Layer Height (um) | 80 | 100 |
| Price ($) | Requires | Quotes |
| Weight (kg) | 340 | 3700 |
| Build Rate (cm^3/hr) | 1817 | 5058 |
Technologies
There are a few terms and technologies to be aware of when looking at Binder Jetting machines.
- Multi color printing: Combining a neutral color powder with a colored binder makes this one of the easiest technologies to create multi color printers for.
- Metal sintering: A temporary binder can be used to hold metal powder together until it can be sintered in a furnace. This allows binder jetting printers to create metal parts, but requires heavy post processing and it may be difficult to get dimensional accuracy due to shrinking during the sintering process.
- Home page
- Material Extrusion
- Powder Bed Fusion
- Vat Polymerization
- Direct Energy Deposition
- Binder Jetting
- Material Jetting
- Sheet Lamination
References
Rosen, Stucker, and Khorasani, Additive Manufacturing Technologies, chap. 8.
“Binder Jetting - BJ | Make.” Accessed October 6, 2023. https://make.3dexperience.3ds.com/processes/binder-jetting.