
Sebastian Hörold, Clariant, discussed flame retardants for 3D-printing. The market today for 3D-printing polymers is around 1.2 billion US$, with an expected growth of +75% per year. There are three main technologies today: powder bed laser fusion (currently limited to polyamides PA12 and PA11), laser photo-polymerisation (certain photo-polymers) and filament or pellet extrusion (which functions rather like an ink-jet printer). Clariant has developed PIN FR solutions for filament extrusion, able to achieve UL94-V0 (0.4 mm) after printing and low-smoke density according to NFPA 130 (and according to EN 45545 under way), with limited mechanical performance loss compared to neat polymer (polyamide 6/66 to date). For powder bed laser fusion there are also already PIN FR solutions commercially available (e.g. from EOS GmbH, Krailling, Germany), which are dry blends of polymers (uniform 20 µm powder blended with flame retardant) able to achieve UL94-V0 (2 mm) for aircraft and E&E applications