Evonik (Essen / Germany; www.evonik.com) and additive manufacturer Evolve Additive Solutions (Minneapolis, Minnesota / USA; www.evolveadditive.com) have entered into an agreement to work together on formulating Evonik’s thermoplastics for use in Evolve’s selective thermoplastic electrophotographic process (STEP).

The US company's STEP process is still in the alpha development stage but is expected to be commercialised in late 2020. Initial development efforts will focus on polyamide 12, polyether block amide (PEBA), transparent PA and PA 6. The companies said their combined efforts will result in a wider range of materials for STEP users.

“STEP has been developed for volume manufacturing so offering the widest range of thermoplastic materials to our customers is a critical element for production,” said Evolve CEO Steve Chillscyzn. “The joint development agreement with Evonik allows us to broaden the spectrum of STEP materials to include materials currently accepted by OEMs from additive manufacturing, but more importantly to debut a whole new set of materials opening up more applications that can take advantage of everything additive manufacturing offers.” Evonik’s head of additive manufacturing innovation growth field, Thomas Grosse-Puppendahl, added that the partners will also develop a wider range of customised material formulations to “unlock the full potential” of STEP technology.