Michigan Tech Researchers Recycle Wood Furniture Waste into Composite 3D Printing Material10/29/2018
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Michigan Tech Researchers Recycle Wood Furniture Waste into Composite 3D Printing Material https://ift.tt/2Azectj From artwork, instruments, and boats to gear shift knobs, cell phone accessories, and even 3D printers, wood has been used often as a 3D printing material. It’s a valuable renewable resource that stores carbon and is easily recycled, so why wouldn’t we think to use it in 3D printing projects? A trio of researchers from Michigan Technological University recently published a paper, titled “Wood Furniture Waste-Based Recycled 3-D Printing Filament,” that looks to see how viable a solution it is to use wood furniture waste, upcycled into a wood polymer composite (WPC) material, as a 3D printing feedstock for building furniture.
While a lot of wood is wasted by burning it, it may be better to upcycle it into WPCs, which contain a wood component in particle form inside a polymer matrix. These materials can help lower costs and environmental impact, as well as offer a greater performance.
While lots of PLA composite manufacturers are already in the market to make virgin, wood-based 3D printing filaments, the Michigan Tech study investigated using wood furniture waste as a 3D printing feedstock for WPC filament, which could then be used to make new furniture components.
The team received wood-based waste material, in both sawdust and bulk form, from several furniture manufacturing companies, and completed some important steps to turn the wood waste into WPCs for 3D printing filament:
Then, the material was loaded into a delta RepRap 3D printer, as well as an open source Re:3D Gigabot 3D printer, to make a high-resolution drawer knob that was “attached to a printed wood block using a wood screw threaded through a pre-printed hole.”
Once an optimized 3D printing profile was obtained, the recycled wood furniture waste-based WPC filament was able to produce parts without too many errors. However, there was a greater frequency of filament blockages and nozzle clogging with this material, when compared to pure PLA.
The researchers wrote that further work on creating waste-based WPC filament should include quantifying the material’s mechanical properties after the first cycle, and then comparing it to other materials, such as pure PLA and modified wood fiber powder. Additionally, industrial equipment and grouped 3D printing nozzles should be evaluated in terms of scaling up the process. Co-authors of the paper are Adam M. Pringle, Mark Rudnicki, and Joshua Pearce. Discuss this and other 3D printing topics at 3DPrintBoard.com or share your thoughts below. Printing via 3DPrint.com | The Voice of 3D Printing / Additive Manufacturing https://3dprint.com October 29, 2018 at 03:27PM
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