Filaments, resins, and material properties — what to print with, how it behaves, and what it costs.
Polish and Italian researchers embedded a light-sensitive dye in vat-photopolymerized resin to build 3D printed optical components that dynamically bend, dim, and polarize laser light through 60,000 switching cycles.
Read the story →Axtra3D has validated Keystone's KeySplint Hard Clear trauma-splint resin on its Lumia.X1 hybrid SLA printer, the second Keyprint dental material cleared for the machine after KeyModel Ultra.
Polymaker's new HT-PLA Pro nearly doubles notched Charpy impact strength over standard HT-PLA and boosts Z-axis layer adhesion, while still hitting 107.6°C heat deflection after annealing — at the same $25.99/kg price.
Lyten's 3D Graphene-reinforced PA1205 nylon is now the primary material for Modovolo's containerized BFP printing platform, with the companies claiming big strength gains over carbon-fiber filament ahead of joint military demos.
Prusa's new castor-oil-based PA11 nylon lands between PA6 and PA12 with lower moisture uptake, strong impact resistance and broad chemical resistance — but it needs an enclosed, chamber-heated printer to run.
One anonymous U.S. defense contract manufacturer just ordered more than CAD $3 million of Ti-6Al-4V powder from Tekna for 2026 — six times its 2025 total — and consumable volume like that is the clearest public signal yet that metal additive manufacturing has moved from prototyping into serial production.
Dutch startup Hembased is selling a cold-compostable FDM filament made from fallen palm leaves at 32 euros/kg, claiming 12-month breakdown in a home compost bin — but the category dates to 2013 and the company names no third-party compostability certification.
Concordia researchers print carbon/epoxy laminates flat, then let engineered thermal-expansion mismatch curl them into finished vertical-axis turbine blades on cooling — no curved mold, ~80% lighter than aluminum, and faster-spinning in lab tests.
Trinity College Dublin and Harcourt Technologies 3D printed Ireland's first Portland-cement-free geopolymer — a red-brown binder built largely from bauxite refining residue that preliminary figures peg at roughly 70% less embodied carbon than ordinary concrete.
University of Waterloo chemists paired a purpose-built hydrophilic silicone resin with vat photopolymerization and a non-contact coating step that erases layer lines from the optical surface — producing patient-specific rigid contact lenses in about 20 minutes. Biocompatibility testing is done; in vivo studies are only in preparation.
A JHU team led by Jochen Mueller has mapped the two thermal failure modes that plague aluminum metal extrusion printing and fixed both by varying bed temperature layer-by-layer instead of fighting the nozzle.
Maui's Voltage Vessels is flying and floating 3D-printed drones made from Eclipse X9, a recycled-PETG/basalt-fiber composite, during the 30-nation RIMPAC 2026 exercise.
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