Their ultimate goal is to save lives: the founders of the ETH spin-off Spectroplast, Manuel Schaffner and Petar Stefanov, have developed a novel 3D printing process capable of making biocompatible silicone parts. “In the long term we hope to use the technology to offer medical implants,” says Schaffner, the young company’s CEO. “And not in standard sizes, as is the case with conventional off-the-shelf products, but customised to fit the individual patient perfectly.”
Until now, Additive Manufacturing has traditionally produced objects made of hard materials such as metal, ceramic, or plastic. On the other hand, soft elastic silicone is still being used exclusively with injection moulding, where different elements of the composite material are fused together at extremely high temperatures of around 300 degrees. Schaffner’s doctoral research came up with a novel method that makes it possible to create soft silicone parts with a 3D printer. He is naturally reluctant to go into more detail, for fear of encouraging copycat products.
Customised parts at the push of a button
3D printing has two major advantages over the traditional injection moulding process: on the one hand this high-precision method is able to produce very complex shapes for the first time. ETH researchers recently used the new method to produce artificial heart valves made of silicone (see
ETH News article
). On the other hand, it makes production simpler and cheaper, as no moulds are required: everything happens at the touch of a button. This paves the way for mass production of customised components.
