… Molding the impossible!

Company Introduction

Our Inspiration

Our Mission

Our Motto

“If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.”

- Nikola Tesla -

…Molding the impossible!

Removing all the design boundaries of the products that improve people’s life by developing and spreading, a more efficient, cleaner and capable technology.

Index

I. Historical Background

II. Ultrasion SLII.I Who we are?II.II Where are we?

III. UltraSonic Molding (USMTM)III.I Introduction. What’s USMTM?

III.II Sonorus PlatformsIII.III PolymersIII.IV Applications

I. Historical Background

1946James Watson Hendry

develops the 1st reciprocating screw machine

1872Hyatt brothers patent the 1st

Injection Molding machine

19951st Micromolding equipment.

Splitted Plasticization and Dosing

WWI & WWIIHigh demand for mass

production articles

Medical & ElectronicMarkets

Push for miniaturization

2011Sonorus 1G development

2005Beginning of USMTM

development

2016Sonorus 2G development

Market TrendHigh demand for higher production volumes part

pushes the industrialization of the technology

USM Development

• In the early XXI Century, state of the artmicromolding solutions were characterized by theiroversized features and instability.

• Downscaling old injectionmolding technologies quicklyenabled the first micro-injection models, but thesekept some constraints of theprevious generations.

• To push the designboundaries found in previoustechnologies, Ultrasion SLfounders decided to startfrom zero designing amachine fully intended formicromolding.

I. Historical Background

• Shareholders

• Company evolution

• Applications

II.I Who we are? - Shareholders

Ultrasion SL is shared by severalcompanies and private investors fromthe industrial sector.

Among them, there are partnerswith a wide range of backgrounds like;companies with more than 75 years ofexperience manufacturing injectionmolding machines (Mateu y Solé), aTechnological Center (Eurecat) orIndustrial software developers (Plastia).

Private Investors

II.I Who we are? - Shareholders

• Ultrasonic Molding (USMTM ) has been in continuous research by Eurecat (fka. ASCAMM), one of the most notorious Hi-Tech research centers in Europe, since 2005.

• Timeline:

2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

Microplast

1st Project granted by EU to research USM

1st USM TM

Patent

Sono”r”us

3rd Project granted by EU to research USM

USM TM at NPE’09

(Chicago - USA)

ASCAMMLaunches Ultrasion SL

as a Spin Off company

1st Sonorus

PROTOTYPE

IPRGranted & Validated

Worldwide

Academia PartnershipUniversities in

Europe and USA

Sonoplast

2nd Project granted by EU to research USM

Academia PartnershipUniversity in China

Introduction

to

Asia

Ultrasion SL wins

EARTO innovation award

1st Sonorus

SALE

1ST

Sonorus 2G At K Show’16

II.I Who we are? – Timeline

• USMTM (UltraSonic Molding):Thanks to the replacement of conventional screws

and heating bands by an acoustic unit, USMTM improvesthe molding process making it more efficient and capable.

USMTM is the core value of Ultrasion SL and the onlycommercially available technology from our portfolio ofapplications.

II.I Who we are? – Applications

• UDMTM (UltraSonic Deposition Modelling):Alike conventional 3D Printing, UDMTM uses a hollow

sonotrode instead of a heated nozzle.

• UMPTM (UltraSonic Micro Pultrusion):UMPTM is a enhanced pultrusion process that uses

ultrasonic energy to form reinforced composites for highperformance applications, micro devices and micro parts.

• UNATM (Nano additivation):UNATM improves the dispersion of nano-particles

through the pelletizing process applying ultrasounds tothe extruder nozzle.

• ULATM (UltraSonic Light Alloys):ULATM improves the degassing process of light alloys

casts. The ultrasonic stimulation aids the elimination ofbubbles reducing the porosity and the nitrogen content.

II.I Who we are? – Applications

II.II Where are we?

• Ultrasion Headquarters

• Academic partners

• Customers

II.II Where are we? – Headquarters

SPAINEurope

Barcelona

II.II Where are we? – Headquarters

ALBA Synchrotron

1ST Submarine (1859)

Cholera Vaccine

Our company is based in one of the cradles of European technology

II.II Where are we? – Headquarters

Ultrasion SL.Valles Technology Park

Av. Universitat Autónoma, 23 – 08290Cerdanyola del Valles (Barcelona) - Spain

Ultrasion cooperates with universities and partners across the world to increase the knowledge about the USMTM and validate new materials.

II.II Where are we? – Academic partners

Pennsylvania Sate University (U.S.A)

University of Bradford (U.K)

Universitat de Girona(SPAIN)

Monterrey Technology Institute (Mexico)

University of Central Lancashire(U.K)

Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya(SPAIN)

Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry (P.R.CHINA)

II.II Where are we? – Academic partners

AMERICA EUROPE ASIA

With presence in the most demanding sectors, our customers are widely spreaded across the world with presence in the Americas, Europe, Middle East and Asia

II.II Where are we? – Customers

II.II Where are we? – Customers

Sonorus Env ironment Markets

The Sonorus 1G is mainly used by ourcustomers in the following environments:

The main benefits of the technology arise whendealing with complex feedstocks or challengingapplications. For this reason, our technology is mostlydemanded in the following sectors:

80%

13%

80%

13%

7%

R&D

Production

Academia

Medical54%

Electronics 15%

Academia8%

CIM/MIM6%

Molder 4%

Optics4%

Polymer Supplier

4%

3D Printing2%

Distributor2%

Hologerie1%

Other17%

III. UltraSonic Molding (USMTM)

I. What’s USM?• Introduction• Benefits• Process Control

II. EquipmentIII. PolymersIV. Applications

• Despite its similarities with traditional injection molding, the technology relies on acompletely different melting mechanism.

• Inefficient screws and heaters bands are no longer required as the heat comesfrom the feedstock itself. The intermolecular friction inside the pellets causedby the ultrasonic wave generates the required heat in a fraction of the timeneeded by other technologies.

• The high efficiency of this heating method enables a fast and local(each shot is melted independently) melting process.

III. I What’s USM? - Introduction

Vibration (Sonotrode)

Pressure (Plunger)

Feedstock

The acoustic system is composed by an ultrasounds generator and 3 components:

Transducer

Booster Sonotrode

Electro-mechanical device that convertsa high frequency electric signal into a30 kHz vibration.

Mechanical component that increasesthe amplitude of the vibrationdelivered by the transducer.

Mechanical component that increases theamplitude of the vibration delivered by thebooster and transmits the energy to thepolymer.

III. I What’s USM? - Introduction

The main benefits of the technology are:

H i g he r m e l t t e m p e r a t u r e

As the reduction of molecular weight (thermal degradation) is a matter of time and temperature, by significantly reducing the first one, USM equipment can process (if needed) the polymers at higher temperatures than usual, leading to:

F l a t t e r , l o ng e r a nd t h i n ne r p a r t sUSM is second to none when the task is filling extremely

thin walled parts.

N o w e l d l i ne s As the polymers are processed at higher temperatures, the

presence of weld lines when two flow fronts meet is minimized.

III. I What’s USM? - Benefits

N o p u r g e

USM is a Stop & Go technology as the purgeoperation doesn’t exist. That generates time and materialssavings highly appreciated by our customers that generallywork with expensive technical or bioabsorbable resins.

N o r e s i d e n c e t i m e

As only the required amount of material per shot ismelted at a time. The polymer remains melted on a very smallfraction of time, avoiding the most common source of thermaldegradation.

III. I What’s USM? - Benefits

H i g h e n e r g e t i c e f f i c i e n c yThanks to the high efficiency of the

ultrasounds and the lack of heating bands, theenergy savings can be cut up to a 75%* dependingon the application (compared to injection molding).

FastMelting Method

Higher Polymer Temperatures

Lower Viscosities

Extreme Wall ThicknessApplications

InducingEnables Enabling

III. I What’s USM? - Benefits

S u m m a r yUltraSonic Molding allows a huge reduction of the energy consumption, reduces the waste of the process eliminating the

purge operation and above all, it opens the design limits previously considered allowing our customers to mold the impossible!

Technical Specification

Ultrasonic Generator Frequency 20-30-40 [kHz]Power 4000-1500-800 [W]

Tooling Cavity plate area* 250 [cm2]Clamping Force 10 [T]Speed 400 [mm/s]

Plunger Axis Max pressure 4000 [Bar]Speed 150 [mm/s]

Pick & Place Axis 1 [x - y]Euromap Protocol YesSpeed 1000 [mm/s]

Injection Volume** 2,5 [cm3]

Thermal Package Temperature zones 2-4 Zones

Water cooled plates yes

*Max

** Depends on the polymer & application

III. II Equipment

The Sonorus 2G is the second generation of Sonorus® equipmentenabled with USMTM technology. After spreading the technology with theprevious equipment (Sonorus 1G), the press has been re-design to fulfilthe increasingly higher production volumes required by our customers.

Its larger size and increasedcapabilities make it the best equipmentfor industrial environments.

The platform introduces newinnovations in USMTM like thefixation of the acoustic unit bymultiple nodal points and thepossibility of using CFDsoftware to simulate theprocess.

USM tooling and processcontrol doesn’t differ much fromtraditional injection molding. Almostall design guidelines and rules areapplicable to both technologies.

III. I What’s USM? – Mold

Ejection Cavity Plate

Injection Cavity Plate

Sonotrode

Chamber sleeve

Cavity

Ejection Guide

Ejection Plates

Plunger

III. I What’s USM? – Process Control

Feeding Melting/Injection Cooling Ejection

The feedstock is fedthrough the parting line atthe beginning of each cycle

The vibration induced by thesonotrode combined with thepressured applied by the plungerheats the feedstock which flowsbetween the sonotrode and thechamber sleeve

As in Injection molding,the part must stay in themold cooling down until itcan be ejected withoutdeformation.

The plunger and theejector system push the partout of the tool.

III. III Polymers

Although USMTM was originally designed to process thermoplastics, through the years many customers have used it to moldparts with more complex materials. As a big part of our customers come from the medical sector, our R&D department isspecialised in Engineering polymers (PEEK, PEI) and Bioabsorbables (PLA and its copolymers).

So far, applications with the following feedstocks have been moulded with our equipment:

• Thermoplastics• Elastomers

• Fluoropolymers• Epoxy resins

• Ceramic injection molding (CIM)• Metallic injection molding (MIM)

Being USMTM capable of processing the most common feedstock shapes (pellets and flakes), there is no need to customizethe materials for our equipment. Our customers generally use materials from the main polymer suppliers like:

III. IV Applications – Case study

One of the early adopters of USMTM was GAES, one of the Europeanleaders in hearing aid device solutions.

Due to their short batch requirements, they needed a Start&Go solutionthat didn’t require long warm up periods or wasting polymer through thepurge operation.

For this reason they were on of the first companies that brought oursolution to their facilities. The picture below shows one of the componentsthat is manufactured by USM in their production lines.

III. IV Applications – Low Pressure

The pictures below show the filter of aswimming ear plug that prevents the

water from getting into the ears.Even being the membrane

extremely delicate, itwas possible to

overmold itwithout damage.

Some parts can be molded by USMTM usingconsiderably lower filling pressure values thanother technologies. That's specially valuable forovermolding applications where delicate innercores or membranes cannot hold severeprocessing conditions.

III. IV Applications – Micro Filter

One of the main challenges whendealing with micro over-moldingapplications is handling the tinycomponents and positioning them in thetool.

For this endeavour, the verticalconfiguration of Sonorus® equipment isideal as it minimizes the automationrequirements.

On the picture, a micro-filter composedby a metallic grid and a TPE frame.

Some of the parts that we produce arevery challenging due to the combination oftechnical polymers (PEEK, PEI …) withextremely thin wall thickness applications.

Cannula type parts are very common inthe medical industry, the picture shows a150 µm wall thickness cannula molded withPI, PEI and COC.

All molded with very small gates,something only possible thank to theenhanced flowability induced by theultrasounds.

III. IV Applications – Thin walls

III. IV Applications

Being USMTM an innovative and key enabling technology,most of our projects are protected by non-disclosureagreements with our customers, reason why we cannot shareinformation about our most challenging applications. If unsureabout the suitability of USMTM for your Project, please contactUltrasion’s R&D department to get a personalized applicationfeasibility analysis.

Email: jrodriguez@ultrasion.comfrivillas@ultrasion.com

… Molding the impossible!

Thanks for your attention!