China3D printingNet news on June 1,3D printingWire company Polymaker is working with Covestro to manufacture Polymaker PC-r, a recycled polycarbonate. The polycarbonate comes from a large 19-liter bottle made by Nongfu Spring. These bottles are repeatedly used for residential and office water use throughout China.Covestro launched a project in 2020 to work with farmersMountain springCooperation to recycle 1 million water bottles every year.
Some raw materials are needed to produce new filaments, but most of them come from recycled bottles. In turn, the resulting material “Blue Angel and EPEAT seal”.
Covestro pointed out that “the fact that waste comes from a single source is an advantage. This means that there is no need to sort and identify plastics in advance. Plastic waste is very pure and can be recycled in a cost-effective manner. In addition, it is available in sufficient quantities. In China, large-capacity water bottles are common in private homes and public places. These are collected and refilled again and again, and finally discarded and sent for recycling.”
Compared with disposable plastic bottles, this is more sustainable. This has another advantage: the MFI (melt flow index) is known and constant, which means it is easier to composite the material, extrude it into filaments and print it. In the case of these bottles, collection is also well known and easy, because partners often perform this work when changing bottles, which means you don’t have to fish out of the trash can.
Covestro also stated that to better print polycarbonate without warping, a constant chamber temperature is required. This was tested on FUNMAT PRO 410 from INTAMSYS. When made in this way, “the test score shows good tensile strength, Young’s modulus, flexural strength, and flexural modulus values, which are slightly higher than standard polycarbonate.”
This is a good example of companies working together to achieve more circular practices. I am usually very cautious about such projects and announcements. There is a lot of greening and excessive demands in this area. In this case, it seems to be a reliable implementation and also realistic. With traceable containers whose service life and condition can be approximated, and substances with known use values, such things can be done more easily.
At the same time, by working directly with water companies, future bottle designs can optimize recycling by using different glues for labels or abandoning them altogether. The removal of rings and caps can also be optimized. In this case, there is little chance that the polymer will be contaminated or degraded beyond its service life. They know exactly when the bottle was made, how long it was used, and how many cycles it was used. In post-consumer waste, there are usually concerns about what substance the polymer has been in contact with or how it was treated before. In this way, all this can be avoided.
If we go further, then Covestro can consider itself the custodian of this material, for example, planning to use it as a consumer water bottle for eight traceable uses, and then double-recycle it as a consumer electronics housing before turning it. Turn it into a 3D printing material.
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