With its new awards format, Formnext is putting exceptional talents and ideas from the world of Additive Manufacturing in the spotlight. Following a jury evaluation and a public vote, these winners were recognized at the award ceremony on 21 November: Axolotl Biosciences (Start-up Award), Oryx Medicals (Rookie Award), Fraunhofer IGCV ((R)Evolution Award), Siemens / 3D-PROCESS research consortium (Design Award), Ceratizit (Sustainability Award), and AM of Bones, University of Stuttgart (AMbassador Award).
The Formnext Awards are presented across six different categories – including young innovative companies, sustainable business ideas, and pioneering technologies – to showcase the AM industry’s ever-growing versatility. This year’s finalists, which had been announced online in advance of Formnext 2024, are also on hand to present at the trade fair. This enabled attendees to cast their votes for their favorite finalist. The overall audience vote was then treated like the vote of an additional jury member. The trophies were designed by SUTOSUTO and produced by Voxeljet, which also sponsored the awards alongside 3D Printing Industry, AM Ventures, cirp, Renishaw, and Trumpf.
Start-up Award supported by AM Ventures
The Start-up Award supported by AM Ventures, which is conferred on young, inspiring companies with viable business models, went to Axolotl Biosciences this year. This Canadian company has developed TissuePrint, a research-grade, xeno-free bioink for 3D-printing human tissue models. It claims that its ink can be used with an array of sensitive cells and is capable of retaining more than 90 percent of its cellular viability after being printed.
Rookie Award
Oryx Medicals took home this year’s Rookie Award, which honors individuals with promising business ideas who have either not yet founded a company or who launched less than a year ago. The young team at Oryx Medicals has come up with a 3D-printed aortic valve that is designed to revolutionize the treatment of aortic valve stenosis
Sustainability Award supported by Renishaw
The Sustainability Award supported by Renishaw recognizes AM applications and products based not just on their production processes, but their entire life cycles. Taking home the prize this year was Ceratizit, a company that specializes in cutting tools and solutions for resistant materials, which has developed a unique procedure for additively manufacturing hard metals based on bonding agents and sintering. Ceratizit has calculated that this technique makes it possible to reduce the carbon footprint by 95 percent.
Design Award supported by cirp
Thanks to its exceptional AM designs, Siemens / 3D-Process research consortium was able to win over the jury and secure the Design Award in 2024. The German giant presented an innovative reactor design for greater sustainability in the chemical industry. According to Siemens, the system – which is designed to synthesize chemicals for active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) – consumes up to 50 percent less energy. It also requires around 50 percent less solvent than the conventional process.
(R)Evolution Award supported by 3D Printing Industry
Coming in first in the running for this year’s (R)Evolution Award supported by 3D Printing Industry was the Fraunhofer Institute for Casting, Composite, and Processing Technology (IGCV). This award is presented to pioneering products, technologies, or services that offer outstanding added value to the user.The IGCV convinced the jury with its project entitled “Three Material Powder Bed Fusion of Battery Cell Cap Housing”. It involves a three-material processing technology (patent pending) that uses powder bed fusion to manufacture battery cell housings from aluminum, copper, and ceramic in a single production step.
AMbassador Award
The AMbassador Award recognizes outstanding individuals or organizations that have had a unique impact on the industry and users through innovative training and education approaches or personal advocacy. This year’s winner: AM of Bones, University of Stuttgart. This university has developed innovative dental bone grafts together with dentists from the Freiburg University Hospital. The project involves the formulation of novel ceramic-filled resins and the design of highly accurate bone implants that are optimized for DLP stereolithography.