RepRapable Recyclebot: Open source 3-D printable extruder for converting plastic to 3-D printing filament
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Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä
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Date
2018-10-01
Major/Subject
Mcode
Degree programme
Language
en
Pages
58
Series
HardwareX, Volume 4
Abstract
In order to assist researchers explore the full potential of distributed recycling of post-consumer polymer waste, this article describes a recyclebot, which is a waste plastic extruder capable of making commercial quality 3-D printing filament. The device design takes advantage of both the open source hardware methodology and the paradigm developed by the open source self-replicating rapid prototyper (RepRap) 3-D printer community. Specifically, this paper describes the design, fabrication and operation of a RepRapable Recyclebot, which refers to the Recyclebot's ability to provide the filament needed to largely replicate the parts for the Recyclebot on any type of RepRap 3-D printer. The device costs less than $700 in mate rials and can be fabricated in about 24 h. Filament is produced at 0.4 kg/h using 0.24 kWh/kg with a diameter ±4.6%. Thus, filament can be manufactured from commercial pellets for <22% of commercial filament costs. In addition, it can fabricate recycled waste plastic into filament for 2.5 cents/kg, which is <1000X commercial filament costs. The system can fabricate filament from polymers with extrusion temperatures <250 °C and is thus capable of manufacturing custom filament over a wide range of thermopolymers and composites for material science studies of new materials and recyclability studies, as well as research on novel applications of fused filament based 3-D printing.Description
Keywords
3-D printing, Circular economy, Composites, Extruder, Fused filament fabrication, Materials science, Open hardware, Open source hardware, Plastic, Polymer composites, Polymers, Recyclebot, Recycling, RepRap, Upcycle, Waste plastic
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Citation
Woern, A L, McCaslin, J R, Pringle, A M & Pearce, J M 2018, ' RepRapable Recyclebot : Open source 3-D printable extruder for converting plastic to 3-D printing filament ', HardwareX, vol. 4, e00026 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ohx.2018.e00026
