A Material-Recycling Unit for the Fused Deposition Modelling of Three-Dimensional Printing Systems

Abstract

Fused deposition modelling (FDM) three-dimensional (3D) printing technology is one of the most common additive manufacturing (AM) technologies due to the relatively low cost of the printing units and materials. Although cost-effective, this technology is not conceived to convert 100% of the raw material into a complete product, creating a potential plastic waste problem. To recycle the plastic waste from the FDM machine into reusable filaments, the concept of a 3D printer material-recycling machine (3DP-MRM) was developed using CREO Parametric 9.0 software. A prototype with four systems, including a spooler system, extruder system, display system, and filament-positioning system, was manufactured in-house with complete run experiments. The tests of the 3DP-MRM were applied, and the machine worked successfully among all the designed functions with minor issues.