Abstract
The amount of wasted polylactic acid (PLA) is increasing because 3D printing services are an increasingly popular offering in many fields. The PLA is widely employed in the fused deposition modeling (FDM) since it is an environmentally friendly polymer. However, failed prototypes or physical models can generate substantial waste. In this study, the feasibility of recycling PLA waste plastic and re-extruded it into new PLA filaments was investigated. An automatic PLA filament extruder was first developed for fabricating new PLA filaments. This paper also discusses the process, challenges, and benefits of recycling PLA waste plastic in an effort to fabricate new PLA filaments more sustainable. It was found that it was possible to fabricate PLA filament using recycled PLA waste plastic. The production cost is only 60% of the commercially available PLA filament. The tensile strength of the developed PLA filament is approximately 1.1 times that of the commercially available PLA filament. The design of experiments approach was employed to investigate the optimal process parameters for fabricating PLA filaments. The most important control factor affecting the diameter of PLA filament is the barrel temperature, followed by recycled material addition ratio, extrusion speed, and cooling distance. The optimal process parameters for fabricating PLA filament with a diameter of 1.7 mm include the barrel temperature of 184 °C, extrusion speed of 490 mm/min, cooling distance of 57.5 mm, and recycled material addition ratio of 40%.
Highlights
A digital caliper was used to measure the diameter of the fabricated filament in diameter
A digital caliper was used to measure the diameter of the fabricated filament in five places
Filaments produced by this work is about respectively 154.6 N. These results indicate that the tensile force of the polylactic acid (PLA) filament produced by this work is about 1.1 times that of the commercially available PLA filament
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Fused deposition modeling (FDM) [1,2,3,4] is a process of fabricating physical models using materials such as polylactic acid (PLA) [5,6,7,8,9,10], polyamide (PA), polycarbonate (PC), acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), investment casting wax, and medical grade ABS. The fabricated physical models were widely used for engineering applications, such as automotive, aerospace, and medical devices. Some topics about FDM technology were studied intensively by many researchers all over the world. Mohamed et al [11]
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