Making very giant components has all the time been an issue in manufacturing. Molds are costly, tooling is gradual, and scaling up typically means beginning over. Perseus Supplies was created to vary that.
Born out of Stanford College, Perseus is taking a contemporary take a look at how very giant, load-bearing composite components are made, from wind turbine blades to ship parts, by mixing additive manufacturing (AM) concepts with superior chemistry and new manufacturing processes.
“We’re not attempting to make 3D printing a bit of higher,” Daniel Lee, co-founder and CEO of Perseus Supplies, instructed 3DPrint.com. “We had been asking why a few of its core limitations exist within the first place.”
From Stanford Chemistry to Manufacturing Actuality
Perseus was based in 2022 by Daniel Lee and John Feist, each researchers at Stanford. Lee was a postdoctoral scholar in Stanford’s chemistry division, whereas Feist was a PhD scholar. Their work led to a publication in Nature Chemistry and, finally, to the conclusion that that they had one thing commercially significant.
Daniel Lee, co-founder and CEO of Perseus Supplies.
“We labored collectively on a few papers,” Lee stated. “That’s after we realized not simply that the expertise was completely different, however that we labored nicely collectively as co-founders.”
On the identical time, Lee was watching the AM business carefully: “I’m not a hater of 3D printing; it positively has its niches. However between 2020 and 2022, I watched the world turn into obsessive about it, after which slowly develop disillusioned.”
To Lee, the business was focusing closely on extra robotics, extra precision, extra software program, with out addressing deeper constraints.
“There’s a elementary restrict that robotic arms and software program alone can’t break by,” he defined.
Questioning the Nozzle
A type of constraints turned a turning level for Perseus: “We began asking very fundamental questions. Like, why are 3D printing nozzles round? That straightforward query opened up an even bigger situation. Round nozzles are nice for element, however they make printing gradual and introduce layer-by-layer defects, particularly when components get giant. By definition, it makes issues gradual,” Lee stated. “And it introduces defects.”
As a substitute of refining the nozzle, Perseus went deeper, into chemistry.
“We realized the chemistry we had been engaged on really solved many of those points, not only for 3D printing, however for a number of composite manufacturing processes.”
The consequence was a totally new strategy: altering how warmth strikes by supplies and letting the fabric itself do a lot of the work.
“As soon as we made that leap — that we may make warmth transfer very in another way — all of the sudden a number of limitations disappeared,” he stated.
Letting Chemistry Do the Heavy Lifting
Conventional composite manufacturing depends upon machines to provide warmth and vitality. Perseus does the alternative. The duo shifted the burden from the machine to the chemistry. And on the heart of Perseus’s expertise is a specialised resin system that makes use of a phenomenon known as frontal polymerization, an idea identified for many years however not often utilized in manufacturing as a result of it’s so tough to manage.
“For those who watch regular resins remedy, it’s like watching paint dry,” Lee famous. “The whole lot cures slowly and evenly. However Perseus’s resin behaves very in another way; you’ll be able to actually see the remedy transfer. It goes from zero % cured to 100% cured, like a wave transferring by the fabric.”
This strategy permits Perseus to construct giant composite buildings shortly, with out large ovens, molds, or energy-intensive tooling.
“We’re embedding the vitality into the fabric itself,” Lee stated. “So the machine doesn’t must carry it.”
Constructed for Scale, Not Devices
Perseus doesn’t promote printers, not less than not proper now. The plan is to promote parts.
“What prospects perceive greatest right now is the half itself,” Lee stated. “Many don’t need to rethink their whole manufacturing course of; they only need a half that works.”
The corporate has developed its personal modular manufacturing system, designed particularly for giant components. Some machines can already produce parts as much as 25 ft lengthy, and the system is designed to scale additional.
“Our purpose may be very easy,” Lee famous. “We would like prospects to name us and say, ‘I want this 80-meter half, are you able to make a thousand of them?’ And we wish to have the ability to say, ‘Sure, and also you’ll have them in three days, not months.’”
Proper now, Perseus is closing its first paid pilot within the wind vitality business, producing a big inside element for a wind turbine blade.
“For wind, that is really a comparatively small half, about 15 ft lengthy,” he identified. “However that’s our area of interest. Massive issues.”
Why Wind, Ships, and Building
Perseus initially focused building, however has briefly shifted focus.
“Composites aren’t totally written into constructing codes but. That acceptance is coming, however it takes time. Wind turbine blades, nonetheless, are already composite buildings, and so they’re getting larger yearly. That made wind a pure first step.”
From there, shipbuilding shortly got here into view.
“On a excessive degree, a blade and a ship are very related,” Lee stated. “They’re each giant, curved, composite buildings. In lots of of those functions, weight issues lower than value, pace, and lead time. If we will make one thing cheaper and sooner, even when it’s not ‘excellent,’ there are various locations the place that also wins.”
Not like many composite firms, Perseus isn’t targeted on making the strongest or lightest materials attainable. As a substitute, the corporate prioritizes how straightforward and quick a fabric is to fabricate. Even when a Perseus composite performs worse than metal in some areas, it may well nonetheless make sense if it’s cheaper and sooner to construct with.
“If it’s cheaper, sooner to construct, and simpler to assemble, that may matter extra.”
Lee additionally challenges how producers take into consideration supplies: “It’s wild to me that we pull one thing out of the bottom and assume it needs to be simpler to work with than a fabric we design from scratch,” he stated. “With artificial supplies, we should always be capable of inform them how one can behave.”
Not Simply One other 3D Printing Startup
Lee doesn’t consider Perseus as a pure 3D printing firm.
“I truthfully don’t care what materials we use,” Lee stated. “If we may do that with metal, we might. However metal doesn’t play properly, and we will’t inform it what to do, in contrast to our resins. That lets us construct giant skeletal buildings with composites, then end them with no matter supplies make sense.”
For Lee, Perseus is just not a facet undertaking or a pastime. Actually, he left Stanford early to pursue it full-time. He stated specializing in tutorial analysis wasn’t his purpose.
“This was simply too thrilling,” he exclaimed.
After two years of validation, principally funded by the Division of Vitality, NSF, and ARPA-E, Perseus formally stepped into the highlight in mid-2024, together with its debut on the Roadrunner Know-how Discussion board.
“Now the proof of idea works,” Lee concluded. “The query isn’t the way it works anymore, it’s to scale up as shortly as attainable.”
If Perseus succeeds, it may reshape how among the world’s largest buildings are made, not by printing layer by layer, however by letting chemistry paved the way.
Subscribe to Our E mail Publication
Keep up-to-date on all the newest information from the 3D printing business and obtain info and presents from third celebration distributors.
Add your 3D Fashions and get them printed shortly and effectively.
