With its new awards format, Formnext is putting exceptional talents and ideas from the world of Additive Manufacturing in the spotlight. Following a jury evaluation and a public vote, these winners were recognized at the award ceremony on 21 November: Axolotl Biosciences (Start-up Award), Oryx Medicals (Rookie Award), Fraunhofer IGCV ((R)Evolution Award), Siemens / 3D-PROCESS research consortium (Design Award), Ceratizit (Sustainability Award), and AM of Bones, University of Stuttgart (AMbassador Award).
The Formnext Awards are presented across six different categories – including young innovative companies, sustainable business ideas, and pioneering technologies – to showcase the AM industry’s ever-growing versatility. This year’s finalists, which had been announced online in advance of Formnext 2024, are also on hand to present at the trade fair. This enabled attendees to cast their votes for their favorite finalist. The overall audience vote was then treated like the vote of an additional jury member. The trophies were designed by SUTOSUTO and produced by Voxeljet, which also sponsored the awards alongside 3D Printing Industry, AM Ventures, cirp, Renishaw, and Trumpf.
Start-up Award supported by AM Ventures
The Start-up Award supported by AM Ventures, which is conferred on young, inspiring companies with viable business models, went to Axolotl Biosciences this year.
This Canadian company has developed TissuePrint, a research-grade, xeno-free bioink for 3D-printing human tissue models. It claims that its ink can be used with an array of sensitive cells and is capable of retaining more than 90 percent of its cellular viability after being printed.
Arno Held, jury member and managing partner at AM Ventures, was among those thrilled by the extraordinary innovations presented by the finalists of this year’s Start-up Award: “The groundbreaking contributions not only push the boundaries of Additive Manufacturing but also shape the future of the industry with fresh, transformative ideas.”, he raved.
Rookie Award
Oryx Medicals took home this year’s Rookie Award, which honors individuals with promising business ideas who have either not yet founded a company or who launched less than a year ago.
The young team at Oryx Medicals has come up with a 3D-printed aortic valve that is designed to revolutionize the treatment of aortic valve stenosis. Their product is a patient-specific mechanical valve that combines the durability of conventional mechanical valves with the advantages of minimally invasive transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI).
Jury member Alex Kingsbury, AM market development manager at nLight, was amazed by the quality of the ideas submitted for the hotly contested Rookie Award. “The face of Additive Manufacturing is changing and the level of sophistication of these rookies astounded me,” she affirmed. “I can’t wait to see where they’ll go from here.”
Sustainability Award supported by Renishaw
The Sustainability Award supported by Renishaw recognizes AM applications and products based not just on their production processes, but their entire life cycles. Taking home the prize this year was Ceratizit, a company that specializes in cutting tools and solutions for resistant materials, which has developed a unique procedure for additively manufacturing hard metals based on bonding agents and sintering. Ceratizit has calculated that this technique makes it possible to save 91 percent of the raw material typically required for conventional production – while also reducing the corresponding carbon footprint by 95 percent. “It’s clear that the subject of sustainability has well and truly arrived in the AM industry,” stated jury member Prof. Kristian Arntz, Professor for Manufacturing Technologies and Machine Tools at FH Aachen, Universitiy of Applied Science. “It was particularly remarkable to see the level of professionalism with which many Sustainability Award entrants were able to present a life cycle analysis that showed the actual contribution they were making.”
Design Award supported by cirp
Thanks to its exceptional AM designs, Siemens / 3D-PROCESS research consortium was able to win over the jury and secure the Design Award in 2024.
The German giant presented an innovative reactor design for greater sustainability in the chemical industry. According to Siemens, the system – which is designed to synthesize chemicals for active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) – consumes up to 50 percent less energy. It also requires around 50 percent less solvent than the conventional process.
Jury member Oliver Tessmann, Professor Digital Design Unit, TU Darmstadt: “I was impressed that the aspect of social relevance played such an important role in the Formnext Awards, beyond the technological aspects!”
(R)Evolution Award supported by 3D Printing Industry
Coming in first in the running for this year’s (R)Evolution Award supported by 3D Printing Industry was the Fraunhofer Institute for Casting, Composite, and Processing Technology (IGCV). This award is presented to pioneering products, technologies, or services that offer outstanding added value to the user.
The IGCV convinced the jury with its project entitled “Three Material Powder Bed Fusion of Battery Cell Cap Housing”. It involves a three-material processing technology (patent pending) that uses powder bed fusion to manufacture battery cell housings from aluminum, copper, and ceramic in a single production step. This innovative approach makes it possible to create enclosures with complex geometries and offers unparalleled flexibility in both design and production. It’s particularly suitable for small-series manufacturing, as cell developers can adjust their designs early on in the development process without having to invest in new tools. This flexibility is key to the rapid development of next-generation battery cells, where the ability to create prototypes and adapt designs quickly is essential.
Jury member Dr. Maximilian Binder, Additive Manufacturing Expert, BMW Group, was among those impressed by this innovation. “This manufacturing concept has the potential to open up all-new fields of application in AM,” he says. “With its highly targeted and efficient use of materials, it clearly outshines common multi-material processes.”
AMbassador Award:
The AMbassador Award recognizes outstanding individuals or organizations that have had a unique impact on the industry and users through innovative training and education approaches or personal advocacy. This year’s winner: AM of Bones, University of Stuttgart.
This university has developed innovative dental bone grafts together with dentists from the Freiburg University Hospital. The project involves the formulation of novel ceramic-filled resins and the design of highly accurate bone implants that are optimized for DLP stereolithography. It also includes the post-processing and cleaning of complex trabecular pores, which are necessary in producing flawless, sterile ceramic implants.
Ralf Anderhofstadt, jury member and head of the Center of Competence Additive Manufacturing (Printing Shop and Media) at Daimler Trucks & Buses, was “very impressed by the number of great ideas submitted for the AMbassador Award by pioneers in AM, and by the degree of maturity evident in the fantastic ideas put forward by both individuals and organizations”.
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