Can Oxygen-Free Production Reduce Oxidation in Metal 3D Printing?

Metalworking and oxygen are like oil and water, they do not mix well. Oxygen is a major disruptive factor in manufacturing, as it causes oxide layers to form. These in turn reduce the quality of a workpiece and lead to faster wear. But what if oxygen could be fully eliminated? Does an oxygen-free environment ensure better results and a long-term remedy? The Laser Zentrum Hannover (LZH) in Germany seems to think so as they researched the impact of oxygen-free production for both brazing and metal additive manufacturing.

This research was done by the LZH via the Collaborative Research Center (CRC) 1368 project “Oxygen-Free Production.” This Collaborative Research Center is made up of researchers from various institutions. In addition to the LZH, institutes from Leibniz Universität Hannover, Clausthal University of Technology and Paderborn University are also involved. The researchers were looking into better oxygen-free production and determine how 3D printing and brazing can be done without oxidation.

To do this, they used an innovative method to tackle the problem of oxidation. During the manufacturing process, they add argon gas with a small amount of silane to the production environment. The silane reacts with the oxygen in the environment and equivalent to an XHV environment. This then has a very low oxygen content and comes close to an extremely high vacuum.