Kyocera Develops Inkjet Printhead for High-Viscosity Materials in Additive Manufacturing

The Japanese Kyocera Corporation has unveiled a new inkjet printhead designed for the first time to enable stable deposition of high-viscosity materials in industrial applications. The development addresses a well-known limitation of conventional inkjet systems, which to date have operated reliably primarily with low-viscosity liquids. The new technology is intended to expand application fields such as industrial coating and, in particular, 3D printing.

At the core of the solution is a newly developed piezoelectric actuator structure combined with an optimized fluid channel geometry. Kyocera continues to rely on the piezoelectric bending mode, but significantly increases the jetting force. This allows materials with viscosities of up to 80 millipascal-seconds to be processed, which according to the company represents a multiple of what previous in-house systems were capable of. At the same time, significantly larger droplet volumes can be generated, which is relevant for additive manufacturing processes using paste-like or functional materials.

Inkjet technology is considered relatively material-efficient in industrial manufacturing, as materials are applied precisely and on demand. In recent years, this principle has increasingly been adopted in additive manufacturing, for example in the printing of electronic structures or functional layers. Until now, however, the use of higher-viscosity media has required alternative processes or complex process adjustments. Kyocera now sees a practical approach to extending existing inkjet concepts to new material classes.

From a technical perspective, the printhead features 1,584 nozzles with a resolution of 360 by 360 dpi and an effective print width of just under 112 millimeters. The fluid routing was designed using internal flow simulations to ensure uniform droplet formation even in circulating systems. This is intended to improve both process stability and part quality.

According to Kyocera, the technology opens up new options for industrial inkjet applications, particularly where material diversity and resource efficiency are becoming increasingly important. For 3D printing, this could result in new process chains and use cases that were previously considered difficult to implement.