Jun 5 2015
LPW and Metalysis have formed a collaboration which has the potential to revolutionise the Additive Manufacturing (AM) market.
This partnership will develop an alternative supply chain for clean, spherical Tantalum and Tungsten powders for quality critical applications. It will combine Metalysis’s unique metal production technology with LPW’s spherodisation and post-processing capability. LPW will be responsible for selling the optimised powder to the AM market. This will result in a supply chain that will be robust, quality driven and deliver high performance powders for the AM markets.
LPW leads the way in the development, optimisation and supply of metal powders into the AM industry and will be able to spherodise, size and blend high quality, free flowing powders directly from the raw material and alloys.
The Metalysis technology, which produces metal powder directly from oxide using electrolysis, has the potential to significantly increase production volumes, indeed its plant in South Yorkshire that begun producing tantalum powder this year is the first new primary tantalum metal production plant in Europe for more than 30 years. The patented process for producing metals, including refractory materials such as tantalum and tungsten alloys, offers both economic and environmental benefits over traditional metal production methods.
LPW Managing Director, Dr Phil Carroll remarked:
“Metalysis offers a greener and more cost-effective process, add our specialist industry knowledge and we can then supply a range of high quality, specially developed powders for the additive manufacturing industry.”
Metalysis Chief Executive, Dion Vaughan said:
“The strategic collaboration between LPW and Metalysis will seek to develop and build the additive manufacturing market for tantalum and its alloys by pooling resources. We believe that LPW’s market expertise will complement Metalysis’s experience in metal powder production to further the development of AM.”
About LPW Technology
Established in 2007, LPW Technology is a market leader in the development and supply of metal powders for additive manufacturing, and provides a comprehensive range of services for the AM industry. These services range from the development of new alloys, through expert application support, to AM machine maintenance. The company has developed a full range of optimised powders specifically for Selective Laser Melting (SLM), Laser Metal Deposition (LMD) and Electron Beam Melting (EBM) with standard powders supplied from stock, and custom and development alloys available on request.
LPW Technology invests heavily in cutting edge analytical technology and offers a complete powder analysis service. LPW POWDERSOLVE™, a proprietary software package, supports efficient powder lifecycle management.
LPW Technology has its headquarters in Runcorn, Cheshire, UK. In June 2014 the company formally established a US subsidiary; LPW Technology Inc. situated in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to provide local support and sales to a growing number of customers in the US. From these locations the company supplies high quality, certified powders to a global customer base drawn from the aerospace, biomedical and automotive industries. LPW have global partnerships with official representatives in China, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Singapore and Turkey; committed to supporting adoption of AM technologies globally with combined expertise and local knowledge.
The company operates to quality control standards: AS 9100 & AS 9120 for aerospace, ISO 9001, and ISO 13485 for medical.
LPW and POWDERSOLVE™ are registered trademarks of LPW Technology Ltd.
About Metalysis
Metalysis is a UK-based company, which owns the global rights to a transformational technology capable of producing a wide range of high value metal powders and innovative alloys at a lower cost and with a smaller environmental footprint than traditional methods. The
Metalysis process is a breakthrough, solid-state technology which works by introducing metal oxide into a molten salt bath where it is electrolysed to form metal powders. Metalysis has received investment from a number of private equity, public and private companies and after ten years of investing in research and development has built a prototype industrial facility in the UK to produce metal powders.
The company is currently focused on the production of tantalum powders for use in conventional and additive manufacturing for a variety of applications in aerospace, electronics, bio-medical, petro-chemical and automotive.