Swiss-Polish team skips solvent bath, gets printed aluminium to 98% density

A team led by Empa's Elham Montakhab removed the solvent debinding step and reached relative densities up to 97.9% in sintered extrusion-printed AA6061 aluminium parts. The study was published in Progress in Additive Manufacturing on 15 October 2026.

• Single-step wick debinding at 350 °C removes over 97% of binder without cracking
• Sintering in nitrogen at 635 °C for 10 hours gave 97.9% density for Kcmix and 96.8% for EnCeram
• Raising temperature to 400 °C added 0.25% oxidation and lowered density
• Mechanical properties are not yet measured, so industrial use awaits further testing