Ultimaker Material Alliance Program now has more than 80 contributing companies

Ultimaker says it has now had more than 80 companies around the world develop material print profiles for its extrusion-based desktop 3D printing systems.
The Dutch vendor launched the Ultimaker Material Alliance Program 12 months ago to drive the printing of ‘the most sophisticated engineering plastics on Ultimaker machines. Immediately, Ultimaker made public BASF, DSM, DuPont, Solvay, and Clariant as partners, with the likes of Arkema, Essentium, Jabil, Polymaker joining later on. Earlier this year, CEO Jos Burger noted that the company was in talks with up to 60 companies with a view to joining the Alliance Program, and it would seem at least some of those discussions have materialised.
Through this programme, Ultimaker has wanted to enable its users to produce parts with materials beyond the standard ABS and PLA grades, and give them access to flame retardant nylons, chemical resistance polypropylenes, and filaments reinforced with glass fibres, for example.