adphos has launched aLITE-Technology, advanced Light Initiated Thermal Emission at drupa 2016. aLITE is based on an area-focussed, high intensity energy source, to allow instantaneous thermal processing. Thus water based or solvent based coatings can be instantly dried or even cured, which is a mandatory requirement to overcome the present application barriers to coating applications in “direct to shape printing”. Today these applications are typically performed by integration of label-printed solutions into the industrial production process.

aLITE also allows the performing of inline drying and sintering of functional coatings applied by inkjet or Aerosol , as necessary, for cost competitive 3D-production of 3-D components. Typically these are only processed today in hot air ovens, mostly offline in standalone production units, requiring much space and much time.

For 3-D additive manufacturing processes, higher speed, more focussed local melting of plastic and even metal powers can be achieved with aLITE offering significant advantage if applied to laser or infrared based 3-D processing.

aLITE can be easily integrated/adapted into existing handling and automation units or robots, since only the small focusing processing head has to be adapted there. The LITE-source and power control unit are separated from this, and the continuous energy transfer is achieved through a wavelength dependent flexible light tube.