She is not allowed to work here without a protective suit, rubber gloves and a tight-fitting full-face respirator. The metal powder Christine Schattmann is handling is so fine that the particles can penetrate deep into the lungs. When stirred up as dust, it is even explosive. “Metal 3D printing cannot be compared at all with the familiar plastic 3D printing that, in theory, could be done in any living room,” explains Schattmann. The research associate, however, is not standing in a living room but in the large additive manufacturing hall of Fraunhofer IAPT in Hamburg-Bergedorf.
The additive manufacturing process the engineer uses is called Laser-based Powder Bed Fusion of Metals (PBF-LB/M). In this process, metal powder is selectively melted in ultra-thin layers. Behind the protective window, the laser beam is guided across the powder bed by mirrors, and after only a short time small cubes begin to grow upwards out of the powder. This precise application of wafer-thin layers makes it possible to produce geometrically highly complex components – for example tree structures printed from a metal-silicon alloy. But that is still some way off, as the research project only started in February 2026.
Read the full article in the current issue of spektrum (in German)
