Vitriform3D, a Knoxville, Tennessee-based startup, is developing a binder jet 3D-printing process intended to turn crushed post-consumer glass into engineered-stone building surfaces.
The company’s earlier targets included tiles and interior surfaces. After participating in Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Innovation Crossroads program, its research focus narrowed to exterior cladding. CEO and co-founder Alex Stiles described testing materials through small prints before scaling up for that application.
Stiles and co-founder Dustin Gilmer combined their backgrounds in photopolymer composites and binder jet technology to develop the process. The University of Tennessee Research Foundation helped the startup obtain a research license and navigate patent filings. Vitriform3D entered Innovation Crossroads in 2022.
Combining glass powder with a polymer binder
Vitriform3D describes its printing method as depositing precise droplets of binder into a bed of glass powder to form a tile pattern. Stiles says the process uses ultraviolet-curing polymers, allowing printed parts to reach their intended strength without subsequent sintering or oven curing.
The company also says its printing technology enables textured surfaces and full-color graphics. These are company-described capabilities, rather than independently established performance results.
Vitriform3D’s development materials distinguish printing from another production method: compression molding. For molded tiles, the company describes mixing glass powder with resin and pigments, pressing the mixture into shape, then cutting, polishing and sealing the pieces.
Those materials describe the printing process as under development on small-scale machines, with a target of producing 24-inch by 36-inch tiles by late 2025. That was a development target, not confirmation that the larger printing format entered production. The company’s molded products use a separate manufacturing process.
Collecting glass locally
Vitriform3D’s sister company, Fourth and Glass Recycling Co., was established in 2023 to collect glass in the Knoxville area and supply material for processing. Vitriform3D says the collected glass is crushed in a hammermill, then sorted and sieved to obtain suitable particle sizes.
The collection service addresses a local recycling constraint. Knoxville excludes glass from its mixed curbside recycling but continues to accept it at recycling drop-off centers.
The city’s recycling guidance says glass recovered from mixed curbside material has insufficient value to cover processing and shipping costs. Glass collected separately at drop-off centers is less contaminated and requires less processing, making shipment to a processor in Atlanta economical. Fourth and Glass provides a separate collection route and a local supply for Vitriform3D’s materials work.
