Developing a plasma process for fabrication of nano-engineered powders suitable for 3D printing of jewellery

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Jewellery manufacturing requires the use of expensive raw materials. Techniques, comprising predominantly of investment casting, typically employed in jewellery fabrication lead to significant waste and scrap, requiring recycling and refining to minimise the loss of raw material. The recycling of precious metals involves the use of stringent chemicals, which themselves require appropriate treatment prior to disposal, while refining may adversely affect purity and product quality. Our Ontario-based industrial partner, Platinum Unlimited, has identified that additive manufacturing techniques (3D printing) applied to jewellery manufacturing offers novel opportunities: reduction of waste and scrap material; the realisation of intricate, complex shapes not necessarily possible through current methods; increased flexibility in design; addressing the issue of porosity and metal fatigue.Additive manufacturing (AM) techniques as applied to jewellery manufacturing involves selective heating of a bed of material in powder form. The final designed product is built-up by a layer-by-layer approach. A vital component in the AM process is the generation of powder feedstock and the control of its particle size and particle size distribution. The most attractive method of producing such powder is through the use of a radio frequency (RF) inductively coupled plasma (ICP) as issues of product contamination may be avoided. A number of plasma operating parameters will lead to appropriate control of the particle size and distribution. In this proposal we study the fabrication of metal powders relevant to Platinum Unlimited, with focus on the process parameters of a RF-ICP torch that allow for control of the powder size and size distribution. The proposed project directly addresses the needs identified by our industrial partner and has the potential to be applied to other industrial fields, such as biomedical devices, healthcare equipment and aerospace.