Experimental guidance of the recycling processing for Polycarbonate (PC) waste
Description
The materials used in the experiment were obtained from Polycarbonate (PC) wastes generated from the injection moulding series production at Sartorius. The raw material used in the production components was PC granules supplied by Idemitsu Kosan, named Tarflon IR1900. Through the literature review of recycling technologies, a novel recycling technology combining additive manufacturing and mechanical recycling was adopted to recycle injection moulding waste. The following figure shows the route of recycling and manufacturing in this study. This recycling manufacturing process is mainly divided into six steps to reproduce. In the meantime, the above processes can be applied to filaments making and FDM using virgin granules, except that the shredding step was removed. The configuration specifications for each of the above steps for virgin PC (vPC) and recycled PC (rPC) are shown in the following Table.
Files
Steps to reproduce
Shredding: The recycled waste was ground into a granular form using a plastic shredder (Felfil). Regrind drying: Pre-dry the regrind at 120°C for 8 hours due to the unique water absorption of this material. Filaments making: The dried regrind were then subjected to filaments manufacturing using an extruder (Filament maker, 3devo). Spooling: the extruded filaments were spooled into rolls. Filaments drying: Pre-dry these filaments in a 3D printing filament dryer (FIXDRY) at a temperature setting of 70°C for 8 hours. FDM: The dried filaments were used for FDM using a printer (Ultimaker S5).
Institutions
- The University of Edinburgh
Categories
Funders
- Sartorius Stedim Biotech GmbH