The plastic pollution crisis plaguing our oceans is staggering! Millions of tons of plastic waste swirl in giant ocean garbage patches and littering coastlines around the globe. Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is a major contributor, the plastic resin commonly used for beverage bottles, food containers, and packaging.
But what if this ocean-bound PET plastic could be captured, recycled, and repurposed into a valuable raw material for 3D printing? That's exactly what SAFuturist is doing through a multi-step recycling process.
Here's how plastic PET waste from oceans gets transformed into 3D printer filament:
Collection and Sorting: The first step is organizing collection efforts to extract PET plastic waste from oceans, coastlines, rivers, and beaches before it can further contaminate marine environments. This ocean-bound PET waste is meticulously sorted to remove any non-PET plastics, organic waste, sand, and other contaminants. Only pure PET waste can be converted into high-quality 3D printing filament.
Shredding and Intensive Cleaning: The sorted PET waste is shredded down into smaller plastic flakes and goes through an intensive washing process using specialized equipment. This removes any remaining grime, salt, residue, or foreign objects that could compromise the recycled plastic quality. Additional separation steps may be needed to recover just the PET polymer resins for recycling into 3D printing filament feedstocks.
Depolymerization and Pelletizing: Here's where the magic happens: The clean PET flakes undergo depolymerization, using heat to break down the polymer chains. The resulting PET compounds are purified and re-polymerized into fresh plastic pellets through a pelletizing process. These pellets are the feedstock material for manufacturing new PET-based 3D printing filaments.
Extruding Into 3D Filament: The recycled PET pellets get fed into an industrial extruder, where they are heated, melted down, and extruded through a die into long continuous strands of 3D printer filament with precise diameter specifications. As the hot filament strands exit the extruder, they are looped and stacked in a precise pattern onto spools to create 3D printing filament spools from recycled ocean plastic material. The spools are then packaged for distribution to 3D printing operations. Quality Control and Certification: Before any 3D printing filament can be sold commercially, it has to undergo stringent quality testing to analyze properties like diameter tolerance, tensile strength, heat deflection, and melt flow characteristics. The recycled ocean plastic filament must meet the same exact specifications as virgin PET filament for reliable and repeatable 3D printing results. The recycled filament is also tested to confirm it retains no smells, discoloration, degradation, or contamination from its former life as ocean plastic waste that could impact 3D printing performance. Printing a Sustainable Future: Once certified, this recycled ocean plastic filament can be used for virtually any 3D printed product, from consumer goods to industrial parts and even artwork made from repurposed marine debris. It's a full-circle solution that reduces plastic pollution while delivering a valuable manufacturing material.
In transforming what was once harmful ocean waste into a vital 3D printing resource, we can spin a more sustainable story for our oceans – and our future.
References
Jiang, J. (2018). Increasing the performance of the marine plastic circular economy. In Towards a Sustainable Asia: Green Transition and Innovation (pp. 143-162). Routledge.
Peng, B., Chen, Z., Chen, X., Yu, H., Chen, J., Wang, X., Xie, W., Yang, M., & Kong, M. (2020). Poly (ethylene terephthalate) materials recycled from coastal sediment plastics. Marine Pollution Bulletin, 151, 110826. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2019.110826
Wang, S., Liang, R., Ben, Y., Zhang, Q., Hull, T. R., Du, S., Cheng, Q., & Shi, W. (2018). Fabrication a novel filament from drinking recycled PET for 3D printing. Composites Communications, 9, 22-28. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.coco.2017.07.003