As the metal additive manufacturing (AM) field evolves with an increasing demand for highly complex and customizable products, there is a critical need to close the gap in productivity between metal AM and traditional manufacturing (TM) processes such as continuous casting, machining, etc., designed for mass production. This paper presents the development of the scalable and expeditious additive manufacturing (SEAM) process, which hybridizes binder jet printing and stereolithography principles, and capitalizes on their advantages to improve productivity. The proposed SEAM process was applied to stainless steel 420 (SS420) and the processing conditions (green part printing, debinding, and sintering) were optimized. Finally, an SS420 turbine fabricated using these conditions successfully reached a relative density of 99.7%. The SEAM process is not only suitable for a high-volume production environment but is also capable of fabricating components with excellent accuracy and resolution. Once fully developed, the process is well-suited to bridge the productivity gap between metal AM and TM processes, making it an attractive candidate for further development and future commercialization as a feasible solution to high-volume production AM.

The Scalable and Expeditious Additive Manufacturing (SEAM) process is an advanced additive manufacturing (AM) technique that relies on the optimization of metal powder suspensions to achieve high-quality 3D-printed components. This study explores the critical role of dispersants in enhancing the performance of stainless steel (SS) 420 metal powder suspensions for the SEAM process by improving powder loading, recyclability, flowability, and consequent final part density. The addition of dispersant allows for increased powder contents while preserving stable rheological properties, thereby enabling higher powder loading without compromising the rheological characteristics required in the SEAM process. Previously, our team implemented a two-step printing strategy to address the segregation issues during printing. Nonetheless, the semi-cured layer was not recyclable after printing, resulting in a significant amount of waste in the SEAM process. This, in turn, leads to a considerable increase in material costs. On the other hand, the addition of a dispersant has been shown to enhance suspension stability, enabling multiple cycles of reuse. This novel approach has been demonstrated to reduce material waste and lower production costs. The enhanced flowability guarantees uniform suspension spreading, resulting in defect-free layer deposition and superior process control. Moreover, the dispersant’s ability to impede particle agglomeration and promote powder loading contributes to the attainment of a 99.33% relative density in the final sintered SS420 parts, thereby markedly enhancing their mechanical integrity. These findings demonstrate the pivotal role of dispersants in refining the SEAM process, enabling the production of high-density, cost-effective metal components with superior material utilization and process efficiency.

Thermochemical energy storage (TCES) using metal oxides offers a promising path for applications requiring high-temperature heat and long duration storage. Among numerous mixed metal oxides that have been studied for TCES, magnesium manganese oxide (MgMnO) has emerged as a promising candidate. A significant challenge of using this material in shaped form is crack formation during manufacturing and redox cycling. To develop mitigation strategies, we have first used a novel additive manufacturing process for manufacturing rods and plates of MgMnO that allows to rapid material mixing and produce a variety of shapes with relative ease. Graphite powder was utilized as pore-forming material to prevent the material from cracking and also to increase the porosity, thereby improving the thermal storage. After cycling, samples demonstrated high energy density that remained consistent. The introduction of graphite powder appeared to significantly reduce cracks, and yielded rods with over 17.24% higher energy density, and improved cyclability.