Materials

9T Labs: 3D printing industrial grade carbon composites

9T Labs is a young Swiss startup that has developed a 3D printing method to create structures with carbon composites. From the design of the part to its post-treatment, they optimize the entire process to allow professionals to obtain industrial…

9T Labs
3Dnatives

9T Labs is a young Swiss startup that has developed a 3D printing method to create structures with carbon composites. From the design of the part to its post-treatment, they optimize the entire process to allow professionals to obtain industrial quality components. Thanks to this process, 9T Labs can design parts with 60% volumetric carbon composite content, a material renowned for its strength but above all for its lightness. Its mechanical properties are often compared to those of metals. The startup also emphasizes the automation of its process and the recyclability of its materials in order to provide industrialists with viable solutions that increase productivity. We met 9T Labs’ Co-Founder and CEO, Martin Eichenhofer, to learn more about the technology developed, sectors concerned and future projects.

Can you present yourself and tell us more about your link with 3D technologies?

9T Labs was founded in February 2018 by Chester Houwink, Giovanni Cavolina and myself as a spin-off from the CMASLab chair of Prof. Ermanni at ETH Zurich, Switzerland. Our mission is to make industry grade carbon fiber composites more accessible using 3D printing technology. In this context, 3D printing is bringing automation and advanced software capabilities to a $80b industry, completely rethinking the way fiber composites are made to date.

9T Labs

The 9T Labs team

How did 9T Labs come about?

Carbon fiber composites are a superior material in terms of weight and mechanical performance compared to its metal counterparts. Just imagine a material which is as light weight as plastic but as strong, or even stronger, than metal. However, the traditional and established manufacturing routes are still limiting a wide spread adoption of this performance material, mainly because of extremely long and expensive development times as well as a lack in automation. We realized the market potential and industry need for fully automated production systems with seamlessly integrated software solutions during our studies at ETH Zurich, which made us kick start the company.