#3DStartup: AddCat and its 3D Printed Reactors Which Can Purify the Air

Dutch startup AddCat combines metal additive manufacturing and catalytic oxidation to develop reactors capable of effectively purifying air. The startup hopes to reduce harmful industrial emissions and some of the unpleasant odors found in some industries (for example biogas plants, manure and wastewater treatment plants, etc.). Using metal 3D printing, AddCat is able to design structures with high thermal conductivity, large surface area and low pressure drop. Thus, its first reactor is designed to eliminate 95% of the odorous components of polluted air. We met with some of its team to learn more about how it uses additive manufacturing and the associated benefits.

3DN: Could you introduce yourself and your connection to 3D printing?

AddCat was founded in December 2019, based upon a patent written by two of our founders, Marc Evers and John Geus. Marc is a serial entrepreneur in the high-tech engineering, build and manufacturing industry, who was already involved in 3D metal printing very early on and who was also at that time the owner of a 3D metal printing service supplier. John Geus is a seasoned expert and technical leader in in the development of catalyst technologies. Both coming from different industries, they started to exchange ideas in which Marc suggested free-from design production methods of 3DP and John immediately recognized the advantages for various industrial catalytic process. This sprouted to the filing of a few patents for the process intensification of these catalytic processes. In the years after, Jacco Hoekstra (a PhD student under John Geus) was already putting some free-time in every week in for initial tests and a proof-of-principle. Gerald van Santen worked with Marc as a project manager and was appointed on a small project where Jacco was working on as well. This finally led to the start of AddCat to bring this innovation to the air purification market.