Powder injection molding (PIM) is a well-known technique to manufacture net-shaped, complicated, macro or micro parts employing a wide range of materials and alloys. Depending on the pressure applied to inject the feedstock, this process can be separated into low-pressure (LPIM) and high-pressure (HPIM) injection molding. Although the LPIM and HPIM processes are theoretically similar, all steps have substantial differences, particularly feedstock preparation, injection, and debinding. After decades of focusing on HPIM, low-viscosity feedstocks with improved flowability have recently been produced utilizing low-molecular-weight polymers for LPIM. It has been proven that LPIM can be used for making parts in low quantities or mass production. Compared to HPIM, which could only be used for the mass production of metallic and ceramic components, LPIM can give an outstanding opportunity to cover applications in low or large batch production rates. Due to the use of low-cost equipment, LPIM also provides several economic benefits. However, establishing an optimal binder system for all powders that should be injected at extremely low pressures (below 1 MPa) is challenging. Therefore, various defects may occur throughout the mixing, injection, debinding, and sintering stages. Since all steps in the process are interrelated, it is important to have a general picture of the whole process which needs a scientific overview. This paper reviews the potential of LPIM and the characteristics of all steps. A complete academic and research background survey on the applications, challenges, and prospects has been indicated. It can be concluded that although many challenges of LPIM have been solved, it could be a proper solution to use this process and materials in developing new applications for technologies such as additive manufacturing and processing of sensitive alloys.

Additive manufacturing (AM) technologies of polymers have experienced tremendous growth within the last decade. [1,2] Various application methods such as material extrusion (MEX), vat photo-polymerization (VPP), material jetting, binder jetting, or powder bed fusion techniques have been elaborated and refined as well as the corresponding feedstocks such as filaments, resins, powders, and compounds with metallic or ceramic powders. [3] Being used mainly for rapid prototyping approaches, in the beginning, AM technologies have grown to be a considerable alternative in production, especially when parameters such as freedom of design, resource efficiency, or mass customization are an issue. [4,5] One major research topic is additive manufacturing for medical applications, where personalized products can be produced via AM. [6][7][8][9] The limitation here are not the technologies but the materials, which have to fulfil all the medical requirements. Other topics are the use of the technologies in production lines, especially in aeronautic, space, and automobile industries. However, AM still has to overcome certain obstacles including inline assembly capability to make a step toward a fully accepted production alternative to well-established production processes. [10] Printing parts and components and subsequently mounting them on the final product do not make use of the full AM potential while printing these parts directly onto the substrate might generate additional benefits due to cutting manual assembly costs. Pushing AM toward inline assembly capability will even enhance the overall system performance of a product, for example, when electrical or thermal conductivity due to interface issues can be improved. [11] The EcoPrint project consortium has set its focus on developing AM inline applicable, electrically insulating, thermally