In advanced manufacturing, the limiting factor isn't always the printer.
Sometimes the geometry is achievable—but the available materials can't deliver the mechanical, biological, thermal, electrical, optical, or processing performance the application requires.
Sometimes the right chemistry already exists, but it wasn't developed for additive manufacturing.
And sometimes a proprietary material can print—but not with the accuracy, surface quality, feature fidelity, throughput, or repeatability required to make the application viable.
B9Creations works with medical device companies, pharmaceutical and biotechnology innovators, electronics manufacturers, research institutions, and advanced manufacturers around the world to close that gap.
From silicone-like elastomers and biocompatible materials to bio-inks, hydrogels, engineering resins, ceramics, and specialized functional materials, the objective is the same:
Engineer the material, process, and technology around what the application actually needs to do.
B9Creations' open material architecture and B9Captivate development environment are specifically designed to optimize printing parameters around both the chemistry of a custom material and the geometry of the part.
A material that cures isn't necessarily a material that works.
Successful additive material development requires the chemistry, print process, geometry, hardware, and end-use requirements to work together.
B9Creations supports that process at multiple levels.
When commercially available materials cannot meet an application's requirements, B9Creations can work with customers and material partners to develop application-specific solutions around the performance required.
That work spans applications requiring properties such as flexibility, biocompatibility, high temperature performance, electrostatic dissipation, dielectric performance, high strength, fine-feature fidelity, and other specialized characteristics. B9's current materials ecosystem includes engineering, elastomeric, biocompatible and specialty materials, while its open platform allows additional materials to be developed around customer requirements.
Sometimes the chemistry already exists. The challenge is making it print.
B9Creations' materials team develops custom settings for proprietary and third-party materials, optimizing the interaction between material chemistry, part geometry, exposure, bleed, cycle behavior, shrinkage, settling, slice thickness, and other process variables.
Customers can also use B9Captivate to develop and control these parameters themselves, including in limited- and private-network environments for proprietary development.
Material performance cannot be separated from the application.
B9Creations evaluates how a material performs in the geometry and workflow that actually matter—then iterates the material settings and printing process around those requirements.
For researchers developing custom materials, B9 publicly describes a process in which settings are developed for the material and then validated remotely or on-site, with compatibility and print results optimized around the application.
Sometimes material development exposes a limitation somewhere else in the system.
B9Creations can engineer beyond the material itself—modifying or developing hardware, software, vats, workflows, and other system components required to make the material practical.
Johnson & Johnson provides one public example. Its R&D team identified a silicone-like B9 material with the non-stick properties needed for a critical fixture, but the viscosity created a hardware constraint on its existing platform. B9Creations modified the printer hardware so the team could run the material successfully at the resolution the application required.
That's the distinction between material compatibility and an application-ready solution.
Medical applications can require unusual combinations of biocompatibility, flexibility, tear resistance, precision, surface finish, and mechanical performance.
B9Creations has developed and enabled silicone-like and biocompatible materials for medical devices, molds, wearables, research applications, and prosthetic development. Its BioRes-Silicone, for example, combines elastomeric behavior with high-resolution printing and ISO 10993 biocompatibility for prolonged skin contact applications.
B9 technology is also being used in prosthetics and neurological research, including micro biocompatible silicone applications at the University of Colorado Anschutz and touch-screen compatible silicone-like materials.
In biotechnology, the material may be the research.
B9Creations works with organizations developing and printing hydrogels, bio-inks, and other novel biological materials, providing technology, custom material development services, software, application consulting, and workflow support. CollPlant, universities, medical-device companies, and biotechnology organizations among users of its micro and material-development capabilities.
For Ronawk, the relationship extends across technology and custom material settings development; Ronawk's co-founder and CTO has publicly described B9's material-settings development as part of the custom, collaborative support enabling its tissue-engineering work.
And the impact can be dramatic. Ronawk's CTO reported that B9's technology and custom settings reduced a process that previously took a month to approximately six hours, with the work ultimately intended to support life-saving therapies.
Electronics introduce an entirely different set of material requirements.
Components, connectors, tooling, fixtures, enclosures, and manufacturing aids can require electrostatic dissipation, thermal stability, mechanical performance, dimensional stability, or specialized dielectric properties.
B9Creations' materials portfolio already includes ESD-safe engineering materials, while its specialty-material strategy extends to high-temperature and RF/dielectric applications. Its micro platform and material-development services are used by electronics manufacturers developing applications where both material behavior and microscale geometry matter.
At universities and research institutions around the world, the requirement can be even less conventional.
B9Creations technology has supported research spanning tissue engineering, microfluidics, drug delivery, biomedical devices, robotics, novel sensing, microgravity applications, and other emerging fields. Its biomedical program specifically supports researchers developing proprietary resins or adapting third-party materials when conventional material portfolios cannot meet the research requirement.
Across industries, B9Creations' custom material work has enabled customers to move beyond the constraints of standard resin portfolios.
NEW MATERIAL CAPABILITIES
Develop materials around application-specific mechanical, biological, thermal, electrical, and processing requirements.
PROPRIETARY & THIRD-PARTY MATERIALS
Bring customer-developed and external chemistries onto an open additive platform.
OPTIMIZED PRINT PERFORMANCE
Tune settings around both material chemistry and part geometry to improve feature fidelity, accuracy, surface quality, and repeatability.
INTEGRATED TECHNOLOGY
Adapt hardware, software, and workflow when the material requires more than parameter changes.
A PATH TO SCALE
Move beyond a successful first print toward a repeatable process capable of supporting continued R&D, validation, and manufacturing.
This is why B9Creations approaches material development as part of a complete manufacturing system—not an isolated chemistry exercise.
The applications B9Creations has supported illustrate just how different “custom material development” can look:
Silicone-like elastomers for flexible medical and manufacturing applications.
Biocompatible materials for medical devices, research, wearables, and microscale applications.
Bio-inks and hydrogels for tissue engineering and biomedical research.
ESD and engineering materials for electronics and manufacturing environments.
High-temperature and low-loss dielectric materials for demanding industrial and RF applications.
Proprietary and third-party chemistries developed by customers whose applications require something that doesn't exist in an off-the-shelf material portfolio.
And that range is the point.
Whether you're developing a proprietary chemistry, adapting an existing material to additive manufacturing, or looking for material performance that doesn't exist today, B9Creations can help determine what it will take to make it printable, repeatable, and application-ready.