Essentium Duratem

Essentium offers numerous innovative technical filaments, mostly polymers and blends designed for exceptional strength, flexibility and high mechanical performance in the most challenging industrial settings, including aerospace and defense, automotive, biomedical, contract manufacturing, consumer goods, and electronic manufacturing.

One of the materials from the Essentium portfolio is the Essentium Duratem, a unique blend of PEI (polyetherimide), PC (polycarbonate) and siloxane. The key properties of this material are:

• Outstanding heat resistance.
• Excellent impact resistance.
• Low corosity and low moisture absorption.
• Great dimensional stability (including thin-wall stability).
• Cold temperature resistance up to -30 ºC.

Video 1: The Essentium Duratem filament. Source: Essentium.

This special combination of PEI, PC and siloxane gives Duratem a significant advantage over other high-temperature materials on the market in terms of impact strength (about 30 kJ/m²), making Duratem about 5 times stronger than PEI 9085 and 9 times stronger than PEKK.

Image 1: Part 3D printed with the Duratem filament. Source: Essentium.

As far as its thermal properties, parts 3D printed with the Essentium Duratem filament can withstand temperatures of 150 ºC, meets the UL 94 flame testing standards (V0) at 1.6 mm as well as the FAR 25.853 testing for flammability, heat release, smoke density, and toxicity. To obtain its flame retardancy properties, Duratem does not contain halogens which makes it safe to use.

Thanks to Duratem's resilience and stability in hostile thermal conditions, parts 3D printed with this material can be used with excellent results in sectors such as aerospace, defense, electrical, energy management, material handling or rail components. Additive manufacturing enables this material to be used for rapid prototyping and the manufacturing of end-use parts for highly demanding applications, valid for situations where flame retardancy properties are required.