About

Powder recovery is a very important step for ensuring process sustainability along the entire life cycle of the product. Controlling and understanding the quality of the powder, both in its as-supplied or reused condition, is essential in order to achieve the desired mechanical properties of the laser melted/ sintered components and to keep the same performance of the final designed product.

Solution & Product

To raise the sustainability performance of MAM technologies, CONIFY introduces methods and tools to extend the life cycle of powder production and uses. We provide recycling tools and methods to optimize powder recovery, reuse, and recycling technologies for different materials and MAM processes towards a greener Metal Additive Manufacturing supply chain supported by Life Cycle Analysis (sustainability and costing). Our strategy is focused on our unique ‘earmarking’ process with which we are able to detect hidden powder characteristics playing a decisive role to the final part quality. This enables the development of individual material-process parameters pairs for high-density, defect-free additively manufactured parts.

Innovation & Scalability

Due to the constantly increasing constraints and new goals posed from the EU related to the constantly increasing greenhouse gas emissions, the growth and scientific interest on key-enabling manufacturing technologies with the potential to replace energy-intensive ones, have sufficiently increased. Metal additive manufacturing is one of the assets having a huge potential in providing a more sustainable future to next generations. The potential is linked with a list of key-characteristics of the technology securing the economic and environmental sustainability of additively manufactured products with the cornerstone being new design methodogies to leverage the capabilities of the technology. Some of the main aspects of this concept are briefly mentioned below: 1. higher material efficiency : design for additive manufacturing (AM) for near-net-shape parts and low buy-to-fly ratios. Recycled materials for higher sustainability potential 2. Design for AM: weight reduction od conventinal parts, new faunctionalities, integrated designs and less assembly costs 3. Less material extraction needs and less waste disposal The main goal is to redesign products having the 3D-printing value-add in mind so that their energy consumption and embodied CO2 are minimized and their business case is optimized leading in decreased footprint and increased profitability.

Traction & achievements

Conify has successfuly established its state-of-the-art laboratory and production facility in Lavrion, Greece. We have taken into account all available international guidelines for safety in metal am and have successfully installed all required measures for increased safety for our metal AM engineers and material scientists. CONIFY has established its unique comprehensive and fast screening/characterisation protocol of metal powders based on existing ASTM and ISO standards. Two metal additive technologies are currently available : Direct Energy Deposition (wire-based) and Laser Powder Bed Fusion for small to medium parts. We employ commercially available metal powders of stainless steels (SS420, 316L, duplex and super duplex stainless steels, tool steels: H13, P20), Aluminum based alloys (AlSiMg), and Copper alloys (CuCrZr) for printing parts with optimised process parameters. Powder blends are also utilised to tune the microstructure and resulting properties of the final parts.

Team & Why Us

Evangelia Karaxi is the Managing Director of CONIFY. Evangelia Karaxi is Mining and Metallurgical Engineer, with MSc and PhD in Materials Science and Engineering focusing in metallic corrosion and protection. She has 10 years of experience in EU funded projects and proposal writing for funding under FP7 and H2020 programmes. Leonidas Gargalis is an Additive Manufacturing (AM) metals research engineer with experience in laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) process and metallurgy. He acquired his PhD in 2021 from the Centre for Additive Manufacturing (CfAM) at the University of Nottingham, UK. Leonidas Karavias is a Mining and Metallurgical Engineer. As a Certified Welding Engineer he has a very good knowledge and experience in Welding Technology and Welding Procedures, in combination with his specialization in metallurgy and manufacturing procedures related to welding, heat treatment and additive manufacturing of metals.

Funding Needs

Contact us for more information on Funding Needs.