Ames Lab, Critical Materials Institute speed metals research

Posted on February 22, 2014 by Nanthakumar Victor Emmanuel, P.Eng One comment

To find alternatives to rare-earth elements and other critical materials, scientists will need new and advanced tools. The Critical Materials Institute at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory, operated by Iowa State University, has a new one: a 3D printer for metals research.

The Critical Materials Institute (CMI) will apply the advantages of the 3D printing process for materials discovery, so researchers can find substitutes to critical materials at risk of being in short supply. CMI scientists will use the printer instead of traditional casting methods to streamline the process of bulk combinatorial materials research, producing a large variety of alloys in a short amount of time.

“Metal 3D printers are slowly becoming more commonplace,” said Ryan Ott, principal investigator at the Ames Laboratory and the CMI. “They can be costly, and are often limited to small-scale additive manufacturing in industry. But for us, this equipment has the potential to become a very powerful research tool. We can rapidly synthesize large libraries of materials. It opens up a lot of new possibilities.”