RE:RE:RE:RE:Just did a little deeper dive on 6k. They haveIt’s an interesting technology, the 6kinc microwave-plasma system (UniMelt).
Before people get overly excited (mostly the shorts), there’s a couple things I’d like to point out, in response to Magicmike67 & Downtheline’s comments on Pyro’s AM division & 6kinc’s Unimelt process:
- 6kinc’s UniMelt process is not why we haven’t heard about the AM division, please don’t put out that kind of misinformation. PYR’s AM powder production facility was completed in October 2018, however just a few months later, after the Aubert & Duval partnership announcement, they came up with significant improvements to their NexGen Plasma Atomization process, which was a big enough deal to warrant halting the production facility and making the necessary design modifications. Following this, they also had to freeze the production line for an extended period while OEMs reviewed the process & powder quality. Pyro is now putting the ‘final touches’ on the , going by Peter’s latest comments in the July 31st Agoracom interview. He also stated that the changes they made are going to make a huge impact on the bottom line.
- The upgraded NexGen process is able to produce a ‘very narrow particle size distribution’ (as they have mentioned in NexGen related NRs) tailored to the client’s powder size requirements, with very little waste (I’d say less than 10%). If you combine this with the increase in production rate of the powders (up to 28kg/h for Ti-6Al-4V powder; when they mentioned over 25 kg/h, I went through their patents and found this number), this is a big deal. The UniMelt technology, according to 6kinc, is scalable to 100 tons/unit/year, but going by the following calcs, the NexGen unit’s annual production could easily be much larger… and is already built and soon to be operational: (28kg/h Ti-6Al-4V powder production rate * 20h run time per day (estimate) x 360 days per year (estimate) = 201.6 tons. Subtract 10% (high-end estimated off-cut waste – which could also be stored & sold to other clients, but for sake of being conservative I’ll remove it), and you get a yield of 181.4 tons. That’s almost double the annual production of the Unimelt unit being mentioned, even if those units were dedicated 100% of the time to Ti powders, which they won’t be. We also don’t know what the CAPEX cost of building these microwave-plasma units are; this factors into how long it takes for powder sales to repay the cost of the system.
- The NexGen Plasma Atomization technology also produces extremely uniform process conditions. There is a reason why Plasma Atomization powders have been considered the gold standard for so long. The problem has never been quality of powder; only costs being high due to the production limitations for high-quality plasma atomized powder. This is changing with NexGen, and is why Pyro announced in NRs that they have lowered the cost enough to open their Titanium AM powder to new markets, as well as enable the powder production of new low-cost high volume materials (I’m quite certain that by new material, Pyro is referring to steel powders here, among others. These new materials will eventually be addressed by Pyro once he Ti powder production line is established. The primary ‘low-cost’ enabled market, is almost surely going to be Automotive, where cost-sensitivity had limited adoption of Plasma Atomized powders in the past.)
- The four biggest elements of OPEX cost in the AM powder process (not necessarily in this order) are:
A) % Off-cuts that end up waste (unable to be sold)
B) Production rate of AM powder
C) Cost of the feed material to make powders
D) Volume of inert gas (Argon usually) required.
FOR A) The NexGen process is going to have a
very low percentage of off-cuts (Peter even said so in the NexGen NRs). In this respect, it seems that the microwave technology improves on this, however it will not be by a significant margin.
FOR B) Already addressed above – I calculated an estimated annual production of 181.4 tons per NexGen unit, which easily beats out 6kinc’s ‘scaled’ numbers.
FOR C) The 6kinc UniMelt process seems to use titanium powders or particles as input, for production of Titanium AM powder. Powders are
more costly than either wire or bar feedstock, which is what the NexGen is designed to use.
FOR D) On the 6kinc website, it states “We use ½ the gas in the UniMelt and 1/3 the power of competitive powder producing process technologies like gas or plasma atomizers.” They’re probably referring to AP&C’s powders here for Plasma Atomization, as the NexGen production is not yet operational (although, judging by Peter’s recent interviews it is extremely close). Coincidentally,
I believe that the NexGen process also uses half of AP&C’s argon gas flow rate, as well as near 1/3 the power, from having looked into both Pyro’s latest Plasma Atomization patents and AP&C’s current Plasma Atomization process patent (which are all publicly available).
- Regarding Silicon nanopowders for Batteries: As part of their product offerings, 6kinc mentioned Silicon for anodes. These guys will likely be using silicon powders of a decent quality (3N-4N) as input to their process. The PUREVAP NSiR process starts from low-quality cheap Quartz and goes directly to Silicon nanopowders. Therefore, it’s extremely unlikely that they’ll be able to come close to the Silicon nanopowder production cost of PYR/HPQ. It does look like they could become a competitor in the silicon materials space. There’s nothing wrong with that if HPQ can beat out their price. No one is expecting HPQ to command 100% of the Silicon nanomaterials market (Even a conservative 10-20% of this market, at the rate it is expected to scale, is going to be a MASSIVE number – all the lithium-ion battery manufacturers are going to be looking for silicon nanopowders/nanowires for their anodes)
I haven’t seen the interview/agoracom question where Peter refers to the 6kinc technology, thanks for pointing that out poppagasket & topseeker. Also, I hope that this information helps clarify some of the misinformation being pushed here.
CndnBacon wrote: LOL....funny guy.....and you know PYRs price point now? And they could do Nano silicon powders IF they WANTED TO? PYRs Powder Div tweaked their systems, and as such, had been delayed due to the fact that once they get QC vetted by industry, they cant even MOVE the equipment a single inch....PYRs OLD tech is the Market dominant producer of Ti powder.. yet here you are claiming 6K has the Tech in the bag, and PYR tech is dead in the water... lmfao...gtfo
Magicmike67 wrote: Downtheline wrote: Lol... This is about a different technology doing the same thing as Pyrogenesis Additive and at a cheaper price! NOT GOOD!! And they managed to achieve commercial production in months were as we still haven't done it yet!! It looks like if they wanted to they could also do anything HPQ is proposing to do.
From there website...
Lastly, we use the gas in the UniMelt® and the power of competitive powder producing technologies like gas or plasma atomizers
Dr. Aaron Bent, CEO of 6K commented, “Our NMC 811 development is just the tip of the iceberg,
At 6K Additive, we enable you to think beyond today. If today you are printing with materials like Inconel 718 or Ti 64, at 6K we produce these materials that are truly spherical, void of porosity and satellites and with better flowability than powders made with competing technologies
Do what you want with this info But be advised it is NOT good imho
To me it looks like 6k is pretty much solely focused on additives and materials products. It would be naive not to expect competition in this vertical, but on the bright side this serves to confirm that there is indeed a large blossoming market for additive powders. There should be enough buyers to go around for everyone. Let's not forget pyro powders have won awards in the industry already!
rainorshine59 wrote: 'an additive powder' capability also.
https://www.6kinc.com/6k-additive/