BlueSky Polymers, Insight Polymers and ALM bring xPEI to SLS printing, no mechanical numbers published yet
Three companies, BlueSky Polymers, Insight Polymers & Compounding and ALM (a EOS Group subsidiary), announced on October 6, 2026 a reactive polyetherimide powder, xPEI, built for selective laser sintering. The pitch: PEI’s high melt viscosity and poor interlayer diffusion have kept it out of SLS until now, and xPEI is supposed to fix that while keeping PEI’s isotropic properties.
The chemistry comes from BlueSky Polymers, a UNC Chapel Hill spinout, under its REAPER line, which also includes a reactive polyamide-imide, xPAI. The idea is a powder (or filament, for FDM) that flows easily during printing and then reacts during a post-print thermal cure, which the companies say raises glass transition temperature and cuts part-to-part variability. xPEI is based on Sabic’s Ultem backbone.
| Attribute | Value |
|---|---|
| Material form | Reusable SLS powder, also FDM filament |
| Chemistry base | Sabic Ultem backbone |
| Production stage | Multi-kg quantities at Insight Polymers |
| Printing systems | EOS P series (ALM/EOS Group) |
Insight Polymers, based in Northeast Tennessee, is now producing xPEI in multi-kg batches. ALM, founded 2004 in Temple, Texas and owned by EOS Group, handled powder preparation and printed the first parts, drawing on its powder-modification and SLS process-tuning work. Target applications named by Insight’s Matt Torosian: aviation air handling and ducting, drone and missile exterior skins, data-center fluid handling and cooling, semiconductor test sockets, and sterilizable surgical tools and medical devices.
Director of innovation Jeremy Lizotte claims xPEI parts get “similar part anisotropy” to injection molding with less waste than machining, since SLS skips subtractive scrap. The three firms say they are now in “prospective conversations” and looking for pilot customers, with no commercial launch date set.
No tensile strength, heat-deflection temperature, powder price, part cost or specific pilot customer has been published.