Electroformed sieves and meshes have emerged as critical enabling technologies in multiple industries. Created through the Additive Manufacturing process of Electroforming, these components offer exceptional precision, uniformity, and design flexibility. This article reviews several key applications that illustrate how Electroformed sieves and meshes empower significant advancements in the food and beverage sector, medical fields, industrial control systems, drone industry, and inkjet printing process.
enhancing efficiency and throughput in Food and Beverage processing
In the food and beverage industry, consistent product quality, hygiene, and reliable production throughput are of key importance. Electroforming technology plays a pivotal role in achieving these goals by providing high-precision filtration components that meet manufacturers' demanding specifications.
Take coffee production as an example. To create the perfect cup of coffee, filtration screens need to evenly distribute water over coffee grounds, precisely controlling extraction to achieve the ideal flavor profile. Electroformed coffee filters make this possible. Unlike conventional methods, Electroforming enables the customization of hole size, shape, and hole profiles. The unique hole configurations of Veco’s shower screens have proved to result in better crema layer, accompanied by fuller flavor and more rounded aroma.
Similarly, Electroformed sieves also find applications in filtration processes such as sugar centrifuge. Sugar production involves centrifugal filtering to separate crystals from syrup efficiently. Electroformed sugar sieves, with ultra-smooth surfaces, uniform hole sizes, and precise geometries, can significantly enhance separation efficiency and throughput compared to traditional alternatives. They allow sugar manufacturers to achieve higher productivity, reduced downtime due to clogging, and ensure consistent product purity. Likewise, starch processors may leverage Electroformed screens to improve throughput, consistency, and reliability, enabling greater efficiency and reducing waste.
empowering Vibrating Mesh Technology to achieve better medication performance
Today's medical devices face intensifying demands for miniaturization, increased precision, and enhanced performance than ever before. Electroforming has become the go-to solution when traditional manufacturing falls short, particularly for high precision components requiring micro-scale features.
Electroformed nebulizer plates represent a breakthrough in medical device engineering where Electroforming plays an important role. A 5mm diameter Electroformed nebulizer plate contains 1,000 precisely tapered holes. It vibrates at an astonishing 128,000 times per second, functioning as a microscopic pump that transforms liquid medication into a consistent mist of 1-5 micron droplets, which is an ideal particle size for deep lung penetration. Clinical studies confirm these devices achieve medication deposition rates significantly higher than conventional nebulizers, delivering more medicine where it matters while reducing treatment times.
enabling lighter, more efficient drones that revolutionizes the industry
As unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), commonly known as drones, are becoming increasingly prevalent in wide applications such as photography, delivery, agriculture, and emergency response, engineers face growing pressure to create smaller, lighter, and more efficient aircraft. Electroforming technology is making a difference in the drone industry with ultra-thin battery foils that are considerably lighter and more uniform than conventionally produced alternatives.
Drone performance is heavily influenced by battery efficiency, overall weight, and compactness. Electroformed battery foils directly contribute to reduced weight, volume, and improved energy density in drone batteries. This not only influences battery performance but also ultimately enables drones to achieve longer flight times, better thermal management, and improved agility.
Beyond battery foils, Electroforming may find additional applications as the drone industry pushes further toward miniaturization. Electroformed precision components may contribute to significant weight reduction, as well as enable complex designs that conventional manufacturing cannot achieve, empowering the industry to create next-generation drones.
improving printing quality with high-precision inkjet nozzle plates
The Inkjet nozzle plate is the single most critical component of an inkjet print head. These small and precise components are designed for high-performance jetting to distribute ink droplets with accuracy, speed, and longevity. They need to be precisely engineered to control the volume, speed, and direction of the ink drops to create sharp, high-resolution prints. Electroforming technology has long been the technique of choice for producing inkjet nozzle plates, as it provides key advantages not feasible with other manufacturing processes.
Veco’s advanced Electroforming process allows exceptional precision, accuracy, and consistency. Diameter variation is down to ±0.5μm across a plate, meaning every nozzle behaves almost identically. This translates to sharper prints without banding and alignment issues. Besides, Electroformed inkjet nozzle plates offer great design flexibility from bell-mouth hole shape to conical designs with various taper angles, allowing engineers to optimize flow dynamics for specific ink properties and printing requirements. In addition, finishing the part with protective metal coatings provides corrosion resistance and improves the lifespan of the inkjet nozzle plates. At Veco, laser marking service can also be provided to mark customers’ tracking codes or product info on products.