Fluent Metal's Metal 3D Printing Technology
📌 Fluent Metal is innovating metal 3D printing using a method similar to inkjet printing, but employing molten metal droplets instead of ink.
💧 The process involves heating a fine microwire tip with plasma, forming a droplet which separates and flies to the substrate, achieving a metallurgical bond through controlled heating.
⚙️ This technique allows for printing with any metal available in wire form, including alloys often inaccessible by powder bed processes, such as high melting point and amorphous metals.

Advantages of Fluent Metal's Process
💰 The architecture provides significant cost efficiency and scalable throughput compared to current metal additive manufacturing methods.
🌈 The process supports multi-material printing using different metals or alloys in parallel, and can print on diverse substrates like plastics or curved metal/single surfaces.
🌡️ A critical advantage is the low heat input to the substrate because they are not moving a melt pool around, enabling applications where surface heating must be below $80^\circ$ Celsius.

Current Applications and Partnerships
✅ Fluent Metal has an industrial use case involving layering bronze onto stainless steel for an OEM manufacturer, successfully meeting the low thermal budget requirement.
🤝 The company is actively seeking partnerships and collaborations in the energy, defense, and automotive sectors who face challenges solvable by their advanced metal additive technology.

Key Points & Insights
➡️ Current metal 3D printing struggles to deliver complex geometries and special metals at an economically feasible cost.
➡️ Fluent Metal's droplet-based system overcomes material limitations, offering access to a wider materials portfolio (e.g., refractory and amorphous metals).
➡️ The ability to print without moving a melt pool is crucial for temperature-sensitive applications, proven by their ability to keep substrates below $80^\circ$C.

📸 Video summarized with SummaryTube.com on Dec 10, 2025, 08:42 UTC