Study on Recyclebot with 3D Printing Wastes for Circular Economy

Abstract:

Plastic is widely used today. Plastic-made items and components have limited lifespans and are quickly disposed of in landfills. Finding new pathways for plastic waste recycling has become a critical focus of sustainability efforts, especially within additive manufacturing (AM) . This paper evaluates the feasibility of producing filaments from the waste plastics using recyclebot for fused deposition modeling (FDM), a widely used AM technique. An indigenous recyclebot was designed and developed. Trial studies have been carried out using ABS (Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene) pellets. Dimensional quality tests were performed on the extruded filaments. Effects of moisture content on the dimensional quality are evaluated. Additionally, the filaments exhibited good flexibility and consistent density. This study establishes that by incorporating recyclebots with existing FDM techniques will significantly reduce the plastic waste within manufacturing and can easily incorporate with circular economy model.

• Periodical: Materials Science Forum (Volume 1110)
• Pages: 135-141
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/p-L7EzIw
• Online since: December 2023
• Authors: J. James Ezhilan*, Ajith Damodaran, K.G. Ashok
• Keywords: Circular Economy, Distributed Recycling, Fused Deposition Modelling, Recyclebot

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