Additive manufacturing materials continue to diversify. Whether it’s photocurable resins, spools of plastics like polylactic acid (PLA), or powdered metals, the kinds of products being 3D printed today have a wide range of properties and applications. Wood, however, has remained an elusive additive manufacturing material. Forust, a Massachusetts-based 3D printing start-up, is looking to change that by creating parts that are fully assembled from wood.
While attempts to print parts with wood have been made in the past, the process involved a mixture of wood and other forms of polymers or resins. Even though the parts were advertised as “wood”, only 30 to 40 percent of the end product was comprised of wood fibers. The process also yielded crude results that didn’t possess the natural grain and feel of conventional wooden parts. Forust remedies this by producing parts that not only match the aesthetic of various kinds of wood, but their function as well.
“We want to make it easy for designers to explore complex geometries for a wide variety of products and applications using an age-old material,” said Andrew Jeffery, CEO of Forust. “At the end of the wood product’s life, we would like to see customers have two choices: dispose of it and it will biodegrade over time as any wood product would, or shred it and repurpose the material into future parts through Forust. Our vision is a true circular manufacturing process.”
Upcycling Waste Products for Additive Manufacturing
Thirty percent of the land on the earth’s surface is covered by forests. By some estimates, around 15 billion trees are cut down around the world every year—that’s 475 trees being felled every second. This means that by the time you clicked on this article and read until this part, over 28,500 trees have just been cut down. Over a third of tree cutting is on account of timber harvesting. While the complete picture—the socioeconomic and environmental impact of cutting down trees on the global level—is complex and worth debating, what remains an incontrovertible fact is that trees are a finite resource.
To combat this, Forust has created a wood-based additive manufacturing solution that utilizes waste products from wood and paper manufacturing. The most common waste products from these industries are cellulose dust (sawdust) and organic polymers (lignin). It is estimated that nearly 40 million tonnes of sawdust is produced annually in the U.S. alone. A copious amount of lignin is churned out as wasted product by the paper industry, with estimates being as high as 50 million tonnes per year. Forust’s solution is to upcycle these two products into its additive manufacturing process. In doing so, what is otherwise a linear, high-waste process—where trees are cut down and manufactured while producing tonnes of waste—is now a circular, green process.
“Applications for Forust’s wood parts are limitless,” said Ric Fulop, CEO of Desktop Metal. “For the first time, we can produce beautiful parts with the same durability and characteristics you would have in traditionally manufactured wood but printed using upcycled materials which does not require cutting down or harvesting trees. With Forust, we have the opportunity to have a meaningful impact on sustainability, climate change and waste issues that we as a humanity have brought to the planet. For each tree saved, we are reducing the carbon footprint by a metric ton over its lifetime.”
It’s worth mentioning that Forust was acquired by Desktop Metal this year, and is now a fully-owned subsidiary.
Exploring Wood Manufacturing via 3D Printing
To 3D print the parts, Forust relies on either the Shop System 3D printer or a customized version of the RAM 336 3D printer. The former is suited for batch production, capable of printing parts that are 35cm x 22cm x 20cm at rates as high as three liters per hour. The latter is more appropriate for mass production, capable of printing parts as large as 180cm x 90 cm x 30 cm, and depositing as much as 106 liters of powdered material in an hour. Both versions of the printer use binder jetting 3D printing technology, which employs precise inkjets to deposit a binding agent over a layer of powdered material. The powder reacts with the agent to bond in the desired shape. The process is then repeated as many times as needed to fully print the part.
In the case of Forust, the powdered material is sawdust/lignin which is then sprayed with a non-toxic, biodegradable binding agent. The binding can be done precisely to the point of replicating the natural grain of different trees such as mahogany, rosewood, ash and zebrawood. The 3D printed parts also contain the stains of particular woods, including oak and walnut. Once the parts are printed, the parts can be treated with traditional wood manufacturing techniques like sanding, polishing, dying and coating. The result is high-quality wood products that have myriad applications not limited to furniture, luxury interior decoration and architecture.
“Forust offers nearly unlimited design flexibility,” said Jeffery. “From exotic grain structures to grainless wood, we can digitally reproduce wood textures and myriad grain types. And, because they are made from a wood and bioresin compound, these parts exhibit functionality and stiffness in line with conventional wood. Our finished pieces are indistinguishable from traditionally manufactured wood products you would find in a store. The additive manufacturing process literally becomes invisible.”
Additionally, Forust’s 3D printing technology makes room for unique shapes and geometries for wooden parts that would either be extremely time-consuming or downright impossible to produce with traditional woodworking.
Forust allows third-party manufacturers and designers to upload their custom designs for printing. They can also engage in partnerships with Forust for batch or volume printing of their products, or as part of their manufacturing process.
Sustainable Wood Manufacturing
The market for manufacturing wood materials is speculated to reach around $506 billion by 2027. When compared to 2020, this means that the industry is growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.7 percent. For this to be tenable, more trees need to be cut down which leads to more deforestation, more ecological systems being harmed and more climate change. With trees being cut down at seven times the rate at which they’re being planted, we are behooved to meet the increased demand for wood products in a sustainable, zero-emissions way.
By incorporating waste products from wood manufacturing into 3D printed wooden parts, Forust stands to protect countless trees. Additionally, the remaining sawdust/lignin powder from the 3D printing process can be recycled continuously for future projects, meaning there is virtually no waste. We have already reported on circularity in the past, and if we truly are serious about protecting our forests, then it’s time to earnestly explore green manufacturing solutions like the one offered by Forust.
For more information on Forust’s technology and to view their 3D printed products, click here.