Nanoe Launches Affordable Zetasinter 4L Furnace, Expanding Access to Metal 3D Printing

By on January 22nd, 2025 in Hardware, news

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The Zetasinter 4L sintering furnace [Source: Nanoe]

Nanoe has released a product that could change metal 3D printing for many users.

Nanoe is a French company that produces materials, including technical ceramics. In 2018, they launched into the world of 3D printing with their Zetamix filaments.

The Zetamix filaments are not your standard polymer filaments. They are ceramic and metal filaments. That is, they are a mix of hard ceramic or metal powder mixed with a printable polymer. The idea is to print objects with these materials on standard FFF 3D printers.

The resulting “green” objects must undergo post-processing to first remove the polymer binder and then sinter the remaining metal (or ceramic) powder together into a final object. This requires a programmable sintering furnace that can take the part through a specific thermal profile during post-processing.

This technology essentially enables anyone with a desktop FFF 3D printer to print metal objects. There’s only one catch: you have to have that complex sintering furnace.

Metal parts processed by the Zetasinter 4L [Source: Zetamix]

There are such furnaces available, but they are typically designed for industrial use and are extremely expensive. There are versions from Desktop Metal, but again, they are quite expensive.

The news here is that Nanoe has now released a sintering furnace of their own, at a more reasonable price point.

The Zetasinter 4L is able to sinter objects with H13, 316L, and 17-4 metals in its 4L chamber. It can reach a temperature of 1350°C and uses an argon or argon/hydrogen atmosphere to prevent corrosion.

This sintering furnace should be able to produce high-quality metal parts made on almost any FFF 3D printer using metal filaments, including those from Zetamix.

Nanoe CEO Guillaume de Calan explained in a LinkedIn post:

“This new furnace is clearly a way for us to position our Zetamix metal filaments + Zetasinter furnace as a direct competitor of our friends at Desktop Metal and Markforged for metal filament-based solutions. And while they are both in some sort of crisis, it still feels like David against Goliath…”

While the Zetasinter 4L is priced at €25,000 (US$26,000) and therefore out of reach of hobbyists, it is only a fraction of the cost of similar equipment from the mentioned competitors. This means that it would be possible for companies to use their existing FFF 3D printers, combined with a new Zetasinter 4L, to produce quality metal parts. In other words, metal printing for the cost of only the sintering furnace.

That price equation could be the way into metal 3D printing for smaller operations that could not otherwise afford Markforged or Desktop Metal solutions, or those that only occasionally print metal parts and cannot justify an expensive solution.

The price point may be just in the range of affordability for larger makerspaces as well, giving them the possibility of metal 3D printing.

Via Zetamix and LinkedIn

By Kerry Stevenson

Kerry Stevenson, aka "General Fabb" has written over 8,000 stories on 3D printing at Fabbaloo since he launched the venture in 2007, with an intention to promote and grow the incredible technology of 3D printing across the world. So far, it seems to be working!