Sustainability Assessment of the Injection Molding Process and the Effects of Material Selection

Abstract

This paper discusses the use of the proposed Material Information Model (MIM) [1] in assessing the sustainability of the Injection Molding (IM) process, and clarifies how to use the material information (based on the characteristics of different types of polymers) to quantify the material impacts. The assessment criteria include energy/water consumption and waste (pollution) production during the process and the effects of other materials during production (like the use of additives) that may add to environmental burdens. This paper addresses issues mainly at the IM process level taking the followings into account — pollution and manufacturing cost, energy and water consumption, waste management, operation safety, hazards to the plastic manufacturing personnel and other environmental impacts — to develop requisite process metrics for measuring the sustainability performances of the IM process. The ideas discussed in the paper lead to the development of computational approaches for selecting the “best” process-material combination.