Skip to content
What happens when you combine platinum, metal 3D printing and crystal growth?
At the Centre for Print Research (CFPR) at the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol), Sofie Boons, Senior Lecturer and Researcher, and Mike White, Research Technician, are exploring exactly that question.
Using Meltio wire-laser Directed Energy Deposition (DED) technology integrated into a HAAS 5-axis CNC machine, the researchers are developing bespoke platinum structures designed to support the growth of sapphire and ruby crystals.
The project brings together advanced manufacturing, jewellery design and experimental material research -creating new possibilities for how precious-metal objects and gemstones could be made.
And for the team, that's exactly what makes the project interesting.
A different way to think about manufacturing
The Centre for Print Research works across design, craft, art and technology, investigating new ways of making that sit outside conventional manufacturing processes.
The Meltio system has become an important tool within that research.
Rather than adopting metal additive manufacturing simply to make an existing process faster, the team is using Meltio to explore what becomes possible when metal deposition and CNC machining are brought together in a single workflow.
The technology provides an opportunity to experiment with new forms, new materials and new manufacturing approaches - including the use of platinum to create structures for crystal growth.
Why platinum?
Platinum is an unusual material to work with. It has an extremely high melting point and excellent chemical resistance, making it difficult and expensive to process using conventional techniques.
Those same properties make it particularly well suited to the team's crystal-growth research.
The researchers are developing bespoke platinum structures that act as scaffolds for growing sapphire and ruby crystals.
With traditional casting, producing complex, delicate or partially enclosed geometries can be challenging. Design changes can also require new patterns or moulds, making experimentation slower and more expensive.
Meltio's wire-laser DED process offers a different approach.
Instead of machining a structure from a solid block of platinum or creating a mould for casting, platinum wire can be deposited directly to build the required geometry.
This near-net-shape approach helps the researchers use material where it is needed, while the integrated CNC capability allows the structure to be subsequently machined and refined.
Building a structure for a gemstone to grow
Perhaps the most unusual part of the research is the relationship between the metal structure and the crystal itself.
The team is investigating whether crystal seeds can be deliberately positioned during the metal build process, allowing the platinum structure to be built around them.
The Meltio process can be paused during fabrication, giving the researchers the opportunity to manually position or adjust a crystal seed before deposition continues.
That level of intervention could be important for controlling the eventual crystal growth.
It also highlights one of the advantages of having the additive process integrated directly into a CNC environment: deposition, machining and carefully controlled intervention can all form part of a single experimental workflow.
For the team, this opens possibilities that would be extremely difficult to achieve through conventional casting or other additive manufacturing approaches.
Giving existing crystal a new life
The research isn't only about how gemstones are grown. It's also about where the material comes from.
The team is investigating the use of existing crystal material as seed material, including residual or waste crystal that might otherwise have little value in jewellery applications.
Because the seed already possesses the required crystal structure, it can provide a starting point for further growth.
The resulting gemstones can develop their own characteristics during the growth process. Colour can be built up through growth, while unique facets and surface features can emerge naturally.
That means the finished stones aren't simply reproductions of conventional gemstones.
Each one can be different.
From industrial technology to unique jewellery
This combination is opening up new possibilities for jewellery design.
The team can use Meltio to explore complex and organic platinum forms that would be difficult to achieve through traditional casting or soldering techniques.
The ability to prototype designs in more accessible materials such as steel also allows forms to be tested and refined before precious materials are introduced.
For a research environment, that flexibility is particularly valuable.
The objective isn't simply to produce identical pieces at scale. It is to experiment, iterate and discover new relationships between material, technology and design.
And because the crystal-growth process itself contributes to the final form, every finished piece has the potential to be genuinely individual.
Making every gram of platinum count
Working with platinum also makes material efficiency especially important.
The Meltio system uses wire rather than powder, allowing the researchers to deposit material directly onto the workpiece and minimise unnecessary waste.
The team has also developed a localised extraction and recovery system to capture platinum generated during machining and fabrication.
Platinum debris and machining by-products can be collected at source for recovery rather than simply becoming waste.
This combination of direct wire deposition, CNC machining and material recovery is helping UWE investigate a more efficient approach to working with precious metals.
What comes next?
The current research is still experimental, but the possibilities extend well beyond jewellery.
The ability to create bespoke platinum structures with high chemical resistance and thermal stability could have potential in other specialist applications, including containers, moulds, tools and components.
More broadly, the project demonstrates how Meltio's wire-laser DED technology can be adapted to applications far beyond conventional industrial manufacturing.
For the Centre for Print Research, the Meltio system is more than a manufacturing machine. It is a platform for experimentation -giving researchers, artists and designers the opportunity to ask different questions of an industrial technology and explore applications that may not have been its original intended purpose.
By combining Meltio wire-laser DED, 5-axis CNC machining, platinum and crystal growth, the UWE team is developing a new approach to making that brings together precision and natural variation, industrial technology and creative practice.
A platinum structure can become the environment for a gemstone to grow.
Waste crystal can become the starting point for something new.
And a manufacturing process can become part of the creative process itself.
The research is still evolving - and that is what makes it exciting. The team isn't simply exploring what Meltio can manufacture today, but what it might make possible tomorrow.