A silicone heart presides over one of the showcases of the new Stratasys facilities in the DFactory Barcelona industry 4.0 hub, promoted by the Consorci de la Zona Franca de Barcelona. It draws attention, not only because it is ultra-realistic (texture and hollow included), but also because it includes the coronary tumor presented by a real patient.
The exact reproduction of this organ has been carried out with 3D printing and can be used, among other things, for the doctor to study the case before carrying out the complex surgical intervention to remove the tumor and reduce risks and operating room time.
On the other hand, thanks to three-dimensional clinical evaluation biomodels like this one, hospitals or technology centers can analyze the potential of new implants before inserting them into the patient. And no less important: “Medicine students and researchers have in their hands the possibility of doing internships without the need to resort to animals or human corpses; it is cheaper and more comfortable, you can study anatomy from anywhere”, explains Thibaut Mathieu, General Manager South EMEA at Stratasys.
Not only the medical sector will benefit from these solutions. Next to the heart, in the same display case, there are reproductions of dentures for dental purposes, or a colorful cubic perfume bottle with tiny three-dimensional butterflies inside. “This resin bottle exemplifies an incredible opportunity for sectors such as perfumery or fashion, because your marketing department, instead of seeing a 2D design as before, can hold the bottle in your hand and decide on the colors on the spot, forms and models”, says Ronen Zioni, CEO
Beyond the possibility of customizing objects, "with this technology, -Polyjet, it's called-, it can be mass-produced and, furthermore, with great detail," adds Zioni, showing several automotive parts, also created additively. "A company that acquires one of these 3D printing machines can manufacture its own parts without depending on foreign suppliers and quickly, thus reducing costs, both purchase and transportation, and, above all, time," he explains. Mathieu.
What is behind the 3D printing offered by this company? From a virtual image, a printer reproduces the layered object with millimeter precision. For example, the heart was recreated thanks to MRIs and CT scans of the patient; the perfume bottle was printed from a digital design.
At the time of printing, different plastics are used that react to light, solidifying and giving rise to thin sheets that are added one on top of the other until the final object is formed with the colors and shapes chosen in the design.
“These machines are easy for customers to use, because before we study their needs, we explain how the machines work, we install them and we carry out annual maintenance”, says Mathieu.
Two of the five Stratasys technologies are world pioneers in additive production, "that is our great differential, we started with 3D printing more than 35 years ago and each year we invest an average of 100 million dollars to improve both the range of products , such as the solutions to offer and the materials, so that they are increasingly efficient, cheap and sustainable”, he adds.
Sustainability that comes as standard in additive production, since it does not leave waste like traditional subtractive production, in which objects are extracted from a block, in addition to reducing transport emissions. “And now we are also looking to minimize energy consumption in the printers,” says the company's General Manager South EMEA.
Stratasys, which closed 2022 with a turnover of 651 million dollars, 23% above its pre-pandemic sales, has just become part of the industry 4.0 cluster that the Consorci de la Zona Franca de Barcelona inaugurated at the end of 2021. “Settling here means being in the place where everyone comes and will come looking for manufacturing solutions”, says Zioni.
"This is an important incorporation as it is a relevant company that is part of these technologies that are already in our ecosystem, such as robotics, sensors or the automotive industry", commented Pere Navarro, special delegate of the State in the Consorci de la Zona Franca de Barcelona, on the day of the inauguration of the headquarters of the multinational in the cluster, on March 22.
