Since the explosion of high-temperature material extrusion 3D printers began taking place, polyaryletherketone (PAEK) has been the polymer family on everyone’s lips. This is thanks in large part to British advanced materials company, Victrex, a legacy maker of the durable, heat- and chemical-resistant plastic that began developing 3D printable varieties. (For the sake of this article, we will not distinguish between PAEK and the widely used sub-variety known as “PEEK,” but you can learn about those distinctions here.)
At the 2023 Additive Manufacturing Users Group (AMUG) Conference, we were able to catch up with Robert McKay, head of New Business Development at Victrex, to learn how the firm’s endeavor into additive manufacturing (AM) has evolved in a substantial portion of its business and the development of LMPAEK polymer for all manner of 3D printing processes and…