Additive Manufacturing of Made-To-Measure Respiratory Protection Systems

CDJ Technologies is an additive manufacturing (AM) company with technology that enables rapid printing over large build volumes. Thisresultant production throughput is differentiating within the AM technology space and enables the adoption of AM technology to addresslimited production-runs. There exist many items where the ability to customize a single component of a system can add substantial value andefficacy to an entire systembut the ability to make these modifications via traditional mass-manufacturing technologies comes at a high cost.CDJ has the capability to produce customized components via AM at substantially lower costs, thus enabling customized systems.One such example would be respiratory protection systems designed for high-threat exposures. The efficacy of these systems is predicatedupon (i) the facepiece being comfortable enough that respirator is engaged when an exposure occurs, and (ii) that the facepiece of therespirator makes an adequate seal to the contours of the end users face. Simply sizing an elastomeric facepiece is often insufficient to ensurethese two requirements, and thus customization of a single component could result in drastically different outcomes. This SBIR examines thematerial development of elastomeric resins for respiratory facepieces applicable within the AM technology space.