Silver’s Value In 3-D Printing And Curing Cancer

In its monthly industry release, The Silver Institute reported once again new applications of silver in products across several industries, in particular health. The Silver Institute has written extensively how silver has helped breakthrough improvements in product development and industries; read previous articles here, here, here, and here.
The State of Silver and 3-D Printing
3-D printing – a process of making a three-dimensional object by adding successive layers of material under computer control – which can be accomplished using metals, plastics and composites, is now being used in the manufacture of many products in which silver is the main or a key component. These products range from circuit boards to jewelry to prosthetic devices.
Two types of 3-D printing processes involve silver. One is the equivalent of casting silver into a 3-D printed mold such as those made of plaster- fortified wax. Casting silver in a preprinted mold is almost exactly the same as standard casting of silver. A wax or polymeric mold is made and treated with plaster. Silver is then poured into the plaster-lined mold. After cooling, the plaster mold is removed, leaving the silver object, which usually needs to be polished or sanded to remove rough areas. The main advantage of using 3-D printing to make molds is that it offers a greater range of design capabilities, especially in the manufacture of products incorporating delicate designs such as lacework.

This post was published at GoldSilverWorlds on September 4, 2014.