Method for layer-wise manufacturing of a shaped body

A method for layer-wise additive manufacturing of a shaped body made up of slices of processed layers, said method comprising the steps of:

• creating a layer of a slurry, said slurry including binder, a dispersing medium and a particulate filler material,
• solidifying the slurry layer,
• directing electromagnetic radiation to the solidified layer for processing it by debinding and/or sintering, and
• repeating the above-mentioned steps to successively build the shaped body,
• wherein said step of creating a slurry layer is performed by a laser induced forward transfer (LIFT) process utilizing a laser (8) to direct laser beam (1) pulses to act on a coating (4) of slurry on a carrier (2) to transfer droplets of slurry to a receptor surface to create the slurry layer (11) which slurry layer (11) is then processed further by the steps of solidifying, and debinding and/or sintering,
• wherein the carrier (2) carries a plurality of separate coating zones (4, 4′, 4″) arranged next to each other, each coating zone (4, 4′, 4″) containing an associated one of a plurality of slurry compositions, and
• wherein a control unit is arranged to control a positioning device for positioning the carrier (2) relative to the laser (8) and the receptor surface such that for each layer of slurry being created a selected spatial distribution of slurry compositions selected from the plurality of slurry compositions in the created slurry layer is formed by selectively positioning coating zones (4, 4′, 4″) to be effective in the LIFT process to achieve a desired spatial pattern of slurry compositions in the created slurry layer.