4 Key Benefits Of The New PP 400 Polypropylene Material For 3D Printing

That plastic to-go container in your fridge, the prescription bottle in your medicine cabinet, and the shower curtain in your bathroom: Chances are these are all made with polypropylene (PP).
Due to its cost-effectiveness, low moisture uptake, and versatile properties, PP is one of the world’s most widely-used plastic materials in manufacturing.
It makes up nearly 20% of all plastic products around us, including plastic dishes, engine coolant tanks, disposable syringes, and food trays. You can find PP used in industries ranging from automotive and medical to consumer goods and packaging.
Although PP has been widely sought after as an SLS material for additive manufacturing (AM), it hasn’t been commercially developed due to the complex thermal characteristics typically required for powder bed fusion technologies. 

That is, until now. 

With our new PP 400 powder, you can now 3D print parts that behave similarly to traditional injection-molded plastics but with thermal characteristics specifically built for the laser sintering process.

Some of the key advantages of PP 400 include: 

• It’s highly recyclable. Considering that traditional PP-based products can take upwards of 20-30 years to breakdown in a landfill, our powder is nearly 100% recyclable. Now you can reduce waste during production and help create more sustainable parts. 
• Reduce your cost per part (CPP). With its high recyclability and less expensive material cost, you can lower your CPP and produce production-quality consolidated products right within your AM technologies without expensive mold and tooling concerns.
• You can produce high detail surface finish and semi-translucent parts. This combination enables you to use laser sintering AM processes to create complex geometries with the same look, feel, and properties of commercial PP.
• It has excellent mechanical properties. PP 400 offers over 50% elongation at break, giving your parts better impact resistance in dynamic environments.

Some of the other benefits of PP 400 include strong chemical resistance against acids, bases, and salts, enhanced processing stability, and high performance in objects that need living hinges.
These properties make it perfect for applications like fluid systems, tanks and containers, piping, interior components on automobiles, and anything that comes in contact with corrosive fluids.
Get all of the versatility you’re used to from traditional PP, but with the added flexibility and lower costs of producing it additively. Check out the full product specs here. 

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At ALM, our passion is creating the best powder-based materials for additive manufacturing, so you can get creative and meet all of your product specs.
Need to meet unique product specifications? Or are you searching for a cost-effective solution to move from prototyping to production with additive manufacturing?
Our team can help you find the right material for your project. Whether it’s a standard material, slight customization of existing material, or completely custom solutions, we have you covered.
Find the right material for your production or prototype to produce better components with a better ROI.

• Not sure what material to use? Use our material finder to select the right fit for your production needs.
• Want to know more about our semi-custom and fully-custom materials and development process? Contact our team today.
• Know what you need and want to place an order? Contact purchasing here.