Source

Abstract

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Although distributed additive manufacturing can provide high returns on investment, the current markup on commercial filament over base polymers limits deployment. These cost barriers can be surmounted by eliminating the entire process of fusing filament by three-dimensional (3-D) printing products directly from polymer granules. Fused granular fabrication (FGF) (or fused particle fabrication (FPF)) is being held back in part by the accessibility of low-cost pelletizers and choppers. An open-source 3-D printable invention disclosed here allows for precisely controlled pelletizing of both single thermopolymers as well as composites for 3-D printing. The system is designed, built, and tested for its ability to provide high-tolerance thermopolymer pellets with a number of sizes capable of being used in an FGF printer. In addition, the chopping pelletizer is tested for its ability to chop multi-materials simultaneously for color mixing and composite fabrication as well as precise fractional measuring back to filament. The US$185 open-source 3-D printable pelletizer chopper system was successfully fabricated and has a 0.5 kg/h throughput with one motor, and 1.0 kg/h throughput with two motors using only 0.24 kWh/kg during the chopping process. Pellets were successfully printed directly via FGF as well as indirectly after being converted into high-tolerance filament in a recyclebot.

Keywords

additive manufacturing;Circular economy; Distributed recycling; Energy conservation; Polymer recycling; Sustainable development; distributed manufacturing; life cycle analysis; recycling; recyclebot; 3-D printing; Open source hardware; Open hardware;  RepRap; Recycling; Polymers; Plastic; Recyclebot; Waste plastic; Composites; Polymer composites; Extruder; Upcycle;  Materials science;additive manufacturing; distributed manufacturing; open-source; extruder; upcycle; 3-D printing; waste plastic;

Trouble Shooting

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No current to motor

  • If power supply is plugged in and hooked up to motor and motor does not run, check to make sure voltage output wires are properly connected to terminals
  • the voltage terminals are shown properly connected to the red and blue wires
  • Red wire connects to the (-V) terminal in the middle, blue wire connects to (+V) terminal (second from right)
  • there should be one unconnected terminal between these two, otherwise the current will be zero


Filament gets stuck in rotating blade

  • this usually occurs when the filament is significantly smaller than the feed hole diameter and deflects away from the blade. the result is the filament getting caught and sheared in the blade rather than being evenly cut.




See also

RepRapable Recyclebot and the Wild West of Recycling

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Recycling Technology

Distributed Recycling LCA

Literature Reviews

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Externals

  • Economist article on U. of Washington's HDPE boat, Oprn3dp.me
  • https://ultimaker.com/en/resources/52444-ocean-plastic-community-project
  • Another possible solution - reusable containers [1]
  • Commercial https://dyzedesign.com/pulsar-pellet-extruder/
  • ---
  • Cruz, F., Lanza, S., Boudaoud, H., Hoppe, S., & Camargo, M. Polymer Recycling and Additive Manufacturing in an Open Source context: Optimization of processes and methods. [2]
  • Investigating Material Degradation through the Recycling of PLA in Additively Manufactured Parts
  • Mohammed, M.I., Das, A., Gomez-Kervin, E., Wilson, D. and Gibson, I., EcoPrinting: Investigating the use of 100% recycled Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) for Additive Manufacturing.
  • Kariz, M., Sernek, M., Obućina, M. and Kuzman, M.K., 2017. Effect of wood content in FDM filament on properties of 3D printed parts. Materials Today Communications. [3]
  • Kaynak, B., Spoerk, M., Shirole, A., Ziegler, W. and Sapkota, J., 2018. Polypropylene/Cellulose Composites for Material Extrusion Additive Manufacturing. Macromolecular Materials and Engineering, p.1800037. [4]
  • O. Martikka et al., "Mechanical Properties of 3D-Printed Wood-Plastic Composites", Key Engineering Materials, Vol. 777, pp. 499-507, 2018 [5]
  • Yang, T.C., 2018. Effect of Extrusion Temperature on the Physico-Mechanical Properties of Unidirectional Wood Fiber-Reinforced Polylactic Acid Composite (WFRPC) Components Using Fused Deposition Modeling. Polymers, 10(9), p.976. [6]
  • Romani, A., Rognoli, V., & Levi, M. (2021). Design, Materials, and Extrusion-Based Additive Manufacturing in Circular Economy Contexts: From Waste to New Products. Sustainability, 13(13), 7269. https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/13/7269/pdf

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